Dedre Gentner

Structure-Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy*

A theory of analogy must describe how the meaning of on analogy is derived from the meonings of its parts. In the structure-mapplng theory, the interpretation rules ore characterized OS implicit rules for mapping knowledge about a base domain into a torget domain. Two important features of the theory are (a) the rules depend only on syntactic properties of the knowledge representation, and not on the specific content of the domoins; ond (b) the theoretical fromework allows analogies to be distinguished o ond (b) The particular relations mapped ore determined by systemaficity. OS defined by the existence of higher-order relations.

Respects for similarity.

This article reviews the status of similarity as an explanatory construct with a focus on similarity judgments. For similarity to be a useful construct, one must be able to specify the ways or respects in which two things are similar. One solution to this problem is to restrict the notion of similarity to hard-wired perceptual processes. It is argued that this view is too narrow and limiting. Instead, it is proposed that an important source of constraints derives from the similarity comparison process itself. Both new experiments and other evidence are described that support the idea that respects are determined by processes internal to comparisons

The Career of Metaphor

A central question in metaphor research is how metaphors establish mappings between concepts from different domains. The authors propose an evolutionary path based on structure-mapping theory. This hypothesis--the career of metaphor--postulates a shift in mode of mapping from comparison to categorization as metaphors are conventionalized. Moreover, as demonstrated by 3 experiments, this processing shift is reflected in the very language that people use to make figurative assertions. The career of metaphor hypothesis offers a unified theoretical framework that can resolve the debate between comparison and categorization models of metaphor. This account further suggests that whether metaphors are processed directly or indirectly, and whether they operate at the level of individual concepts or entire conceptual domains, will depend both on their degree of conventionality and on their linguistic form.

Structural Alignment during Similarity Comparisons

Similarity comparisons are a basic component of cognition, and there are many elegant models of this process. None of these models describe comparisons of structured representations, although mounting evidence suggests that mental representations are well characterized by structured hierarchical systems of relations. We propose that structured representations can be compared via structural alignment, a process derived from models of analogical reasoning. The general prediction of structural alignment is that similarity comparisons lead subjects to attend to the matching relational structure in a pair of items. This prediction is illustrated with a computational simulation that also suggests that the strength of the relational focus is diminished when the relational match is impoverished, or when competing interpretations lead to rich object matches. These claims are tested in four experiments using the one-shot mapping paradigm, which places object similarity and relational similarity in opposition. The results support the hypothesis that similarity involves the alignment of structured representations.

Learning and Transfer: A General Role for Analogical Encoding.

Teaching by examples and cases is widely used to promote learning, but it varies widely in its effectiveness. The authors test an adaptation to case-based learning that facilitates abstracting problem-solving schemas from examples and using them to solve further problems: analogical encoding, or learning by drawing a comparison across examples. In 3 studies, the authors examined schema abstraction and transfer among novices learning negotiation strategies. Experiment 1 showed a benefit for analogical learning relative to no case study. Experiment 2 showed a marked advantage for comparing two cases over studying the 2 cases separately. Experiment 3 showed that increasing the degree of comparison support increased the rate of transfer in a face-to-face dynamic negotiation exercise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Systematicity and Surface Similarity in the Development of Analogy

This research investigates the development of analogy: In particular, we wish to study the development of systematicity in analogy. Systematicity refers to the mapping of systems of mutually constraining relations, such as causal chains or chains of implication. A preference for systematic mappings is a central aspect of analogical processing in adults ( Gentner, 1980 , Gentner, 1983 ). This research asks two questions: Does systematicity make analogical mapping easier? And, if so, when, developmentally, do children become able to utilize systematicity? Children aged 5–7 and 8–10 acted out stories with toy characters. Then they were asked to act out the same stories with new characters. Two variables were manipulated: systematicity, or the degree of explicit causal structure in the original stories, and the transparency of the object-mappings. Transparency was manipulated by varying the similarity between the original characters and the corresponding new characters: it was included in order to vary the difficulty of the transfer task. If children can utilize systematicity, then their transfer accuracy should be greater for systematic stories. The results show: (1) As expected, transparency strongly influenced transfer accuracy (for both age groups, transfer accuracy dropped sharply as the object correspondences became less transparent); and (2) for the older group, there was also a strong effect of systematicity and an interaction between the two variables. Given a systematic story, 9-year-olds could transfer it accurately regardless of the transparency of the object correspondence.

Language and the career of similarity.

Similarity has been cast both as hero and as villain in theories of cognitive processing, and the same is true for cognitive development. On the positive side, Rosch and her colleagues have suggested that similarity is an initial organizing principle in the development of categorization (e.g., Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, & Boyes-Braem, 1976), and Carey (1985) implicates a similarity mechanism in childrens learning of the biological domain. It has also been suggested that similarity may play a role in word acquisition (Anglin, 1970; Bowerman, 1973, 1976; E. V. Clark, 1973; Davidson & Gelman, 1990; Gentner, 1982c). Others have taken a more pessimistic view, according to which similarity is either a misleading or at best an inferior strategy used as a last resort. Keil (1989), for example, posits that children begin with theories of the world and that

Language acquisition and conceptual development: Individuation, relativity, and early word learning

Which words do children learn earliest, and why? These questions bear on how humans organize the world into semantic concepts, and how children acquire this parsing . A useful perspective is to think of how bits of experience are conflated into the same concept . One possibility is that children are born with the set of conceptual conflations that figures in human language . But assuming (as we will) that most semantic concepts are learned, not innate, there remain two possibilities . First, aspects of perceptual experience could form inevitable conflations that are conceptualized and lexicalized as unified concepts. In this case, we would have cognitive dominance : concepts arise from the cognitive-perceptual sphere and are simply named by language. A second possibility is linguistic dominance : the world presents perceptual bits whose clumping is not pre-ordained, and language has a say in how the bits get conflated into concepts . We propose that both cognitive and linguistic dominance apply, but to different degrees for different kinds of words (Gentner 1981, 1982). Some bits of experience naturally form themselves into inevitable (preindividuated) concepts, while other bits are able to enter into several different possible combinations.

Similarity and the development of rules

Similarity-based and rule-based accounts of cognition are often portrayed as opposing accounts. In this paper we suggest that in learning and development, the process of comparison can act as a bridge between similarity-based and rule-based processing. We suggest that comparison involves a process of structural alignment and mapping between two representations. This kind of structure-sensitive comparison process--which may be triggered either by experiential or symbolic juxtapositions--has a twofold significance for cognitive development. First, as a learning mechanism, comparison facilitates the grasp of structural commonalities and the abstraction of rules; and, second, as a mechanism for the application and extension of previously acquired knowledge, comparison processes facilitate the application of abstract knowledge to new instances.

A cross-linguistic study of early word meaning: universal ontology and linguistic influence.

This research concerns how children learn the distinction between substance names and object names. Quine (1969) proposed that children learn the distinction through learning the syntactic distinctions inherent in count/mass grammar. However, Soja et al. (1991) found that English-speaking 2-year-olds, who did not seem to have acquired count/mass grammar, distinguished objects from substances in a word extension task, suggesting a pre-linguistic ontological distinction. To test whether the distinction between object names and substance names is conceptually or linguistically driven, we repeated Soja et al.s study with English- and Japanese-speaking 2-, 2.5-, and 4-year-olds and adults. Japanese does not make a count-mass grammatical distinction: all inanimate nouns are treated alike. Thus if young Japanese children made the object-substance distinction in word meaning, this would support the early ontology position over the linguistic influence position. We used three types of standards: substances (e.g., sand in an S-shape), simple objects (e.g., a kidney-shaped piece of paraffin) and complex objects (e.g., a wood whisk). The subjects learned novel nouns in neutral syntax denoting each standard entity. They were then asked which of the two alternatives--one matching in shape but not material and the other matching in material but not shape--would also be named by the same label. The results suggest the universal use of ontological knowledge in early word learning. Children in both languages showed differentiation between (complex) objects and substances as early as 2 years of age. However, there were also early cross-linguistic differences. American and Japanese children generalized the simple object instances and the substance instances differently. We speculate that children universally make a distinction between individuals and non-individuals in word learning but that the nature of the categories and the boundary between them is influenced by language.