Concept learning is a central problem for cognitive systems. Generalization techniques can help organize examples by their commonalities, but comparisons with non-examples, near-misses, can provide discrimination. Early work on near-misses required hand-selected examples by a teacher who understood the learner’s internal representations. This paper introduces Analogical Learning by Integrating ...

Analogical reasoning is a powerful mechanism for exploiting past experience in planning and problem solving. This paper outlines a theory of analogical problem solving based on an extension to means-ends analysis. An analogical transformation process is developed to extract knowledge from past successful problem solving situations that bear strong similarity to the current problem. Then, the in...

Analogical reasoning has been hypothesized to critically depend upon working memory through correlational data, but less work has tested this relationship through experimental manipulation. An opportunity for examining the connection between working memory and analogical reasoning has emerged from the growing, although somewhat controversial, body of literature suggests complex working memory t...

Analogy researchers do not often examine gesture, and gesture researchers do not often borrow ideas from the study of analogy. One borrowable idea from the world of analogy is the importance of distinguishing between attributes and relations. Gentner (, ) observed that some metaphors highlight attributes and others highlight relations, and called the latter analogies. Mirroring this logic, we o...

This paper focuses on the development of analogical reasoning abilities in 5- and 6-year-old children. Our particular interest relates to the way in which analogizing is influenced by the provision of task-based feedback coupled with a self-explanation requirement. Both feedback and self-explanation provide children with opportunities to engage in self-reflective thinking about the process of a...

We tested whether analogical processes can be harnessed to help children learn in a complex, naturalistic learning situation. Specifically, we asked whether a brief analogical training experience could help children learn a key principle of stable construction— namely, the idea of using a diagonal brace to stabilize a structure. The context for this learning was a free construction activity in ...

Abstract The proposed theory can account for analogies based on learned relationships between elements in the source and target domains. However, its explanatory power regarding the discovery of new relationships during analogical reasoning is limited. We offer an alternative perspective for the role of PFC in analogical thought that may better address different types of analogical mappings.

Analogical reasoning--perceiving similarities in different situations and the transfer of such information--facilitates learning and understanding. However, children with learning disabilities (LD) typically demonstrate deficits in such information processing strategies. In this study, we investigated the analogical problem-solving differences between children with verbal learning disabilities ...

Analogical and causal reasoning theories both seek to explain patterns of inductive inference. Researchers have claimed that reasoning scenarios incorporating aspects of both analogical comparison and causal thinking necessitate a new model of inductive inference (Holyoak, Lee, & Lu, 2010; Lee & Holyoak, 2008). This paper takes an opposing position, arguing that features of analogical models ma...