Three-term relation of analogy
Analogy has been considered to be the mapping between a base and target.
But, this framework requires several unrealistic processing in modeling
analogies, such as exhaustive mappings in the initial stage of analogy.
My idea is that what is really computed in human analogical reasoning
is the equivalence (or sameness) between a base and target. In order to
establish the equivalence, one has to postulate a superordinate class
(hereinafter abstraction) that subsumes both a target and base. Therefore,
analogy should be regarded as a three-term relation (base, target, and
abstraction), rather than the direct
mapping between a base and target.
Quasi-abstraction
What kind of abstraction is involved in human analgical reasoning?
One of the most rubust findings in human learning is that people have
considerable difficulties in learning and using abstract knowledge.
On the other hand, some linguists (Lakoff and his colleagues) and
develpmental psychologists (A. Brown and Goswami) have found that
people, even 3-year-olds, can use, detect, and transfer the abstract
relations.
These contradictory results can be reconciled by carefully analyzing
the nature of abstraction. Abstraction people can use have following
properties:
- organized by generalized goals,
- their entities having fixed roles to achieve the goal.
Such abstractions differ from those generated by random deletion of
features of concrete examples and from hard abstract rules and principles
that scientists and logicians produced by entity-variabilizing.
In this sense, human abstraction can be called "Quasi-abstraction."
Related papers
- Suzuki, H. (1994) The centrality of analogy in knowledge
aquisition in instructional contexts. Human Devleopment, 37, 207-220.
- Suzuki, H. (1995) Bridging the conceptual gap. In Proceedings of the
Seventeenth Annual Conference of Cognitive Science Society. Pittsburgh.
- Suzuki, H. & Murayama, I. (1991) The role of pragmatic representation
in human learning. Advances in Japanese Cognitive Science, 4, 79-104.
(In Japanese with English abstract).