Chapter 8. Appreciation and interpretation of visual metaphors in advertising across three European countries

The alternative typologies of visual metaphors proposed by Forceville (1996, 2005) and Phillips and McQuarrie (2004) show some striking similarities with regard to disposition of the visual elements, that is, the source and target domains. The first part of this chapter summarizes the results of two experiments that tested the validity of these classifications with Spanish, French, and Dutch participants and proposes an overall image of the appreciation of the three visual metaphor types. The second part focuses on the interpretations of the metaphors by the Spanish, French, and Dutch participants in the second experiment, to verify whether culture influences the interpretation of the common ground in visual metaphor. We detected subtle cultural differences in focus and interpretive diversity.