Common and specific features in pictorial analogies

Abstract

Pictures belonging to different domains (cups and persons), as well as pictures belonging to the same domains (cups or persons only), were used to construct analogies of various paradigms. Pictures from different domains shared three common features, while pictures within each domain had two features specific to that domain. When no specific feature change was introduced, an asymmetry of the paradigms (A cup is to B cup as R person is to S person and P person is to Q person as C cup is to D cup) was obtained as an extension of the theory of metaphoricity (Ortony, 1979l predicted. When specific feature changes were introduced, however, the obtained results were not as the extended theory would predict. An alternative model that emphasizes the function of a set of reference feature changes in extraction and comparison of the feature changes that may exist in the first and second terms was proposed to account for the experimental findings.Verbal or geometric analogies generally take the form "A is to B as C is to D" (A:B::C:D). In the laboratory or in psychometric tests, analogies are tested in two formats: true-false analogies and forced-choice analogies.In true-false analogies, the subject tries to determine whether a relation can be constructed from C to D that is analogous to the relation from A to B. In forcedchoice analogies (A:B::C:D 1 ,D z ), the subject tries to determine which alternative (D 1 or D z ) best forms a C-to-D relation that is analogous to the A-to-B relation.Most models of analogical reasoning (e.g., Evans, 1968;Grudin, 1980;Mulholland, Pellegrino, & Glaser, 1980;Sternberg, 1977;Whitely & Barnes, 1979) agree on the following processes of solving an analogy. First, the geometric patterns comprising the A and B terms of the analogy are decomposed into subpatterns or elements, and the transformations that relate the elements in the A-B pair of terms are determined. (In the case of verbal analogies, the A and B terms are decomposed into features.) Second, the same process applies to the CoD pair of terms. Third, the A-B transformations and the CoD transformations are compared to determine the correctness of the D term. Several important issues raised are as follows. The first issue is concerned with how the relation between the A and C terms affects solution time. Sternberg (1977) postulated that extraction of the A-C relation is a necessary condition for solving an analogy. Hence, if there is a larger difference between A and C in terms of