TY - JOUR
T1 - Similarity involving attributes and relations
T2 - Judgments of similarity and difference are not inverses
AU - Medin, Douglas L.
AU - Goldstone, Robert L.
AU - Gentner, Dedre
PY - 1990/1
Y1 - 1990/1
N2 - Conventional wisdom and previous research suggest that similarity judgments and difference judgments are inverses of one another. An exception to this rule arises when both relational similarity and attributional similarity are considered. When presented with choices that are relationally or attributionally similar to a standard, human subjects tend to pick the relationally similar choice as more similar to the standard and as more different from the standard. These results not only reinforce the general distinction between attributes and relations but also show that attributes and relations are dynamically distinct in the processes that give rise to similarity and difference judgments.
AB - Conventional wisdom and previous research suggest that similarity judgments and difference judgments are inverses of one another. An exception to this rule arises when both relational similarity and attributional similarity are considered. When presented with choices that are relationally or attributionally similar to a standard, human subjects tend to pick the relationally similar choice as more similar to the standard and as more different from the standard. These results not only reinforce the general distinction between attributes and relations but also show that attributes and relations are dynamically distinct in the processes that give rise to similarity and difference judgments.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0002587010&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0002587010&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-9280.1990.tb00069.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-9280.1990.tb00069.x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0002587010
SN - 0956-7976
VL - 1
SP - 64
EP - 69
JO - Psychological Science
JF - Psychological Science
IS - 1
ER -