Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of contributors
- Similarity and analogical reasoning: a synthesis
- Part I Similarity and the structure of concepts
- Part II Analogical reasoning
- 7 The mechanisms of analogical learning
- 8 A computational model of analogical problem solving
- 9 Use of analogy in a production system architecture
- 10 Toward a microstructural account of human reasoning
- 11 Analogy and the exercise of creativity
- 12 Comments on Part II: Levels of description in information-processing theories of analogy
- 13 Comments on Part II: The role of explanation in analogy; or, The curse of an alluring name
- Part III Similarity and analogy in development, learning, and instruction
- Afterword: Comments on Parts I, II, and III: A framework for a theory of comparison and mapping
- Name index
- Subject index
12 - Comments on Part II: Levels of description in information-processing theories of analogy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of contributors
- Similarity and analogical reasoning: a synthesis
- Part I Similarity and the structure of concepts
- Part II Analogical reasoning
- 7 The mechanisms of analogical learning
- 8 A computational model of analogical problem solving
- 9 Use of analogy in a production system architecture
- 10 Toward a microstructural account of human reasoning
- 11 Analogy and the exercise of creativity
- 12 Comments on Part II: Levels of description in information-processing theories of analogy
- 13 Comments on Part II: The role of explanation in analogy; or, The curse of an alluring name
- Part III Similarity and analogy in development, learning, and instruction
- Afterword: Comments on Parts I, II, and III: A framework for a theory of comparison and mapping
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
The chapters by Dedre Gentner, Keith Holyoak and Paul Thagard, and David Rumelhart in this volume present a broad spectrum of approaches to understanding the nature of analogical thought processes. Gentner spends a good deal of effort on formulating just what an analogy is; Holyoak and Thagard use production systems and spreading activation to simulate analogical processing in a problemsolving task; and Rumelhart explores the potential importance of connectionism for understanding analogies in the context of other “higher mental processes.” How are we to integrate this enormous diversity in tackling the same underlying problem? Is one right and the others wrong? Which proposals actually conflict, and which ones are compatible? What have we learned from each one about analogical thought?
I plan to approach these questions within a broad metatheoretical framework that spans the unique as well as the common aspects of the three presentations. The framework I have in mind is closely related to David Marr's (1982) well-known distinction among three levels of analysis of an information-processing (IP) system: the computational level, the algorithmic level, and the implementational level. My own view of the situation is slightly different from Marr's in that I see IP theories as spanning a single continuum of possible theoretical levels defined at the “upper” end of the spectrum by informational (or task) constraints, at the “lower” end by hardware constraints, and in between by behavioral constraints.
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- Similarity and Analogical Reasoning , pp. 332 - 345Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989
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