Abstract
A theory of analogy must describe how the meaning of an analogy is derived from the meanings of its parts. In the structure-mapping theory, the interpretation rules are characterized as implicit rules for mapping knowledge about a base domain into a target 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 domains; and (b) the theoretical framework allows analogies to be distinguished cleanly from literal similarity statements, applications of abstractions, and other kinds of comparisons. Two mapping principles are described: (a) Relations between objects, rather than attributes of objects, are mapped from base to target; and (b) The particular relations mapped are determined by systematicity, as defined by the existence of higher-order relations.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 155-170 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Cognitive Science |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1983 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Artificial Intelligence