Abstract
The authors seek to separate the variables that determine the accessibility of an analogical match from those that determine the predictive power of the match. Structure-mapping theory describes the rules by which people reason with an analogy once it is accessed. This theory is summarized. An experiment was conducted to create a naturalistic long-term memory access situation. The results show that similarity matches are important in determining both accessibility and inferential power of analogies. The conclusion concerning inferential soundness is that structure-mapping theory is correct: shared higher-order relational structure is the most important variable. The conclusion concerning access is that surface similarity between base and target is a strong determinant of the accessibility of a comparison.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Unknown Host Publication Title |
Publisher | IEEE |
Pages | 607-613 |
Number of pages | 7 |
State | Published - Dec 1 1985 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Engineering(all)