Abstract
Analogies between cases with matching sets of connected relational structure is well-explained by existing theory. Re-representation is posited as an important mechanism to increase the flexibility of analogical processing by allowing the alignment of non-identical predicates across compared cases. It has been proposed that certain kind of categories can be characterized in terms of the relational structure that its exemplars tend to satisfy. Such relational categories have the property that all members of the category are analogous to one another. We ask whether a process of re-representation can alter the construal of a case and bring two evidently non-analogous cases into analogical alignment if they are both seen as members of the same relational category. We examine analogies between pairs of cases where the base is a canonical example of a relational category and the target would not be considered a member of the category on its own – critically, the cases themselves share no evident relational identities or similarities. In Experiment 1, we ask whether presenting a target case as part of an analogical pairing alters its construal. In Experiment 2, the pairs are presented for judgment as potential analogies. In both studies, participants interpret the target cases differently (consistent with the relational category) as a result of processing the analogy. There are two main implications: (1) a form of re-representation is at work in which the activation of a relational category triggers an alternate construal of the target case; and (2) this suggests a path to analogical status for cases that lack relational identities or similarities if the cases can both be fit to the same relational category.
Highlights
In Argentine film “El fútbol o yo” (“Soccer or me”), Pedro Pintos is a fan of any the team or league – he watches soccer at home, at social gatherings and even at work
We propose an alternate path in which analogical re-representation takes place by transferring a relational category that is readily activated by a base analog but not readily activated by the target case
We make one key shift to extend beyond existing work: instead of presenting two canonical cases of the relational category, we present pairs that consist of one canonical case and one target case where the latter is generally not seen as a member of the category on its own
Summary
In Argentine film “El fútbol o yo” (“Soccer or me”), Pedro Pintos is a fan of any the team or league – he watches soccer at home, at social gatherings and even at work. The structure-mapping theory requirement for alignment is that two relations are either identical or synonymous; or that re-representation operates to specify some form of direct semantic match Along these lines, Gentner and Kurtz (2006) found a pattern of fast rejections (item pairs judged non-analogous) for verbs that were clearly unrelated. The common semantic structure that derives from the interdependency between the verbs (buy, write) – which have no common basis between them – and the objects (perfume, poem) serves to activate a common schema-governed category and thereby drive analogical acceptance While comparisons of this kind do not require re-representing the analogs (each situation of the pair leads to the activation of the common schema-governed category independently from the other one), it is possible to envision cases where the target situation is not naturally represented as an instance of the schema-governed category to which the base situation belongs, but that might be re-represented as such due to taking part in analogical comparison with the base. The descriptions of the target case were analyzed to determine the extent to which participants in both groups applied the relational category corresponding to the base analog of the experimental condition
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