Expertise and Metaphor : A Special Issue of Metaphor and Symbolic Activity

As specialized topics in basic science come to age, one often begins to see applications, and this special issue represents such maturation.

Contributors present some empirical studies of the nexus of expertise, metaphor, and model.

Topics include the use of metaphors by expert politicians, software developers, experimental psychologists, mnemonists, and diagnosticians of semiconductor faults.

Diverse theoretical issues arise, ranging from the question of whether metaphors for mental imagery are in fact metaphors, to the question of how to generate neural networks that stimulate the process of falsifying scientific theories.

It is not absolutely certain that metaphor will enable us to say anything especially profound about expertise or that expertise will enable us to learn anything especially profound about metaphor.The editor, however, is convinced that metaphor will be a useful - if not necessary - tool in the analysis of expertise, in the process of knowledge elicitation for expert systems, and in the process of capturing, representing, preserving, and disseminating the knowledge and skills of experts.