Personification is a figure of speech in which you give human qualities, characteristics or features to inanimate things or objects.

Examples are,
The stars winked at me.
The wrinkled tree bark seemed at peace in the midst of the storm.
Time creeps on you.

As personification is still concerned with giving character traits to objects without using the words "as", "like" or "than" it can also be seen as a type of metaphor.

It can also be assumed that we personify inanimate things, for it enables us to identify with these things on some level. When we put inanimate things in a context we understand, it become easier to grasp how that entity works.