How does a knight know which frog is to be kissed?: Intelligence, creativity, and analogical reasoning with metaphorical and odd concepts

Abstract

In a replication to Marr and Sternberg's (1986, Cognitive Development, 1, 53–72) study on analogical reasoning with novel concepts, Polish students in grade 7 were given a modified analogies test in which typical verbal analogy problems were preceded by a statement about the analogy item. The statements were either familiar, metaphorical, or odd. Half of the statements were irrelevant for the solution of the analogies. The test required a subject to integrate the relevant into the analogy task and ignore the irrelevant information. The students were also presented with creativity and intelligence tests. Although the latencies did not yield significant differences between the ability groups, the error rate essentially differentiated the least intelligent students from the others. In the case of relevant stimuli the error rate for metaphorical and novel stimuli was substantially higher than for familiar ones; however, this effect was smaller for more intelligent subjects. Irrelevant stimuli, on the other hand, turned out to produce the least number of mistakes if the pre-cue was familiar and the greatest number of errors—if the pre-cue was odd, metaphorical items being of medium difficulty. This pattern was essentially the same for all levels of general intellectual ability. The conclusion is suggested that intelligence determines one's appropriate, though not necessarily quick, adaptation to novel situations, providing that novel information is contextually relevant. If it is not, no differences between ability groups are observed. The effect of differential attention paid by gifted and nongifted subjects to novel and familiar stimuli was not replicated.