The act of symbolizing; symbolical representation.

A general mechanism in all human thinking by which some mental representation comes to stand for some other thing, class of things, or attribute of something. This mechanism underlies dream formation and some symptoms, such as conversion reactions, obsessions, and compulsions. The link between the latent meaning of the symptom and the symbol is usually

something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible; "the eagle is a symbol of the United States"

the process of translating Features into graphic marks (points, lines, areas) on a map; encoding spatial information to aid visualization.

the use of symbols to convey meaning