Analogy Generation in Science Experts and Novices

There is a critical inconsistency in the literature on analogical retrieval. On one hand, vast set of laboratory studies has found that people often fail to retrieve past experiences share deep relational commonalities, even when they would be useful for reasoning about current problem. other historical and naturalistic research show clear evidence remindings based commonalities. Here, we examine possible explanation this inconsistency—namely, principles increase as function expertise. To test claim, devised simple analogy-generation task can administered across wide range We presented common events bases from which generate analogies. Although themselves were unrelated geoscience, event was explainable terms causal principle prominent expert geoscientists likely spontaneously produce analogies geoscience relied same principle. Further, these examples, prompts increased their frequency among nonscientists scientists another domain, but not (whose spontaneous retrieval levels already high). In contrast, example best explained by outside all groups required prompting substantial numbers principles. Overall, pattern suggests use characteristic experts. suggest adopt habitual patterns encoding according key contributes propensity matches. discuss implications nature expertise science instruction assessment.