Systematicity and Surface Similarity in the Development of Analogy

Abstract

This research investigates the development of analogy: In particular, we wish to study the development of systematicity in analogy. Systematicity refers to the mapping of systems of mutually constraining relations, such as causal chains or chains of implication. A preference for systematic mappings is a central aspect of analogical processing in adults (Gentner, 1980, 1983). This research asks two questions: Does systematicity make analogical mapping easier? And, if so, when, developmentally, do children become able to utilize systematicity? Children aged 5–7 and 8–10 acted out stories with toy characters. Then they were asked to act out the same stories with new characters. Two variables were manipulated: systematicity, or the degree of explicit causal structure in the original stories, and the transparency of the object‐mappings. Transparency was manipulated by varying the similarity between the original characters and the corresponding new characters: it was included in order to vary the difficulty of the transfer task. If children can utilize systematicity, then their transfer accuracy should be greater for systematic stories. The results show: (1) As expected, transparency strongly influenced transfer accuracy (for both age groups, transfer accuracy dropped sharply as the object correspondences became less transparent); and (2) for the older group, there was also a strong effect of systematicity and an interaction between the two variables. Given a systematic story, 9‐year‐olds could transfer it accurately regardless of the transparency of the object correspondence.

When Do Words Promote Analogical Transfer?

“…When the composite score was broken down into structural and semantic mappings and analyzed with a mixed-design 2 x 2 (mapping type x condition) ANOVA, there was a main effect of mapping type, with participants generally making more semantic matches, 0.49 (SD = 0.30), than structural ones, 0.26 (SD = 0.22), F(1, 63) = 15.34, p < 0.001. This result supports the notion that superficial semantic similarity strongly influences mapping (Gentner & Toupin, 1986;Ross, 1989), but we should note that these explicit mappings were made after the transfer quiz, so they may or may not have been used during transfer (Ross, 1987).…”

“…Similarity plays a major role in analogical mapping and usually mappings that can be made on the basis of object similarity are the least effortful (Gentner & Toupin, 1986). In Experiments 1 and 2, the correct mappings were both superficially and relationally similar, but in Experiments 3 and 4 semantic and structural information did not foster the • volume 3, no.…”

Contextualization in Perspective

“…However, Experiment 3's change resulted in a signal-to-signal match between operable tumor and sweet melons-a more intuitive, semantically congruent mapping. Previous research has suggested that variations in the similarity and alignability between two situations can have a strong effect on transfer (i.e., Gentner & Toupin, 1986;Gick & Holyoak, 1983;Ross, 1987;Son, Doumas, & Goldstone, under review) .…”

Evidence of a transition from perceptual to category induction in 3- to 9-year-old children

“…According to perceptual-bias accounts, young children's default strategy is for perceptual induction, and only once they develop the sufficient knowledge of causal relations within a domain, can they shift their focus to category and relational cues (Gentner, 1988;Gentner & Toupin, 1986;Sloutsky et al, 2007). For example, when presented with a straw and a plant stem and asked how the two items were similar, children aged 5 focused on the perceptual similarity and said that both items were long and thin, but by age 9 children could shift their focus to relational similarity and said that both could also carry water: a relational shift (Gentner, 1988; also see Gentner & Rattermann, 1991;Halford, 1993).…”