From Metaphors To Equations: How Can We Find The Good Ones?
  Among the metaphors used in the target article are "musical instruments", "water waves", and other types of mechanical oscillators. The corresponding equations have inertial properties and lead to standing waves that depend on boundary conditions. Other, physiologically relevant quantities like refractory times are not contained in the mechanical oscillator model but occur naturally for instance in biological forest fire metaphors. 
Gottfried Mayer-Kress