Analogical Transfer Research Articles

Unusual hand postures but not familiar tools show motor equivalence with precision grasping

A central question in sensorimotor control is whether or not actions performed with the hands and corresponding actions performed with tools share a common underlying motor plan, even though different muscles and effectors are engaged. There is certainly evidence that tools used to extend the reach of the limb can be incorporated into the body schema after training. But even so, it is not clear whether or not actions such as grasping with tools and grasping with the fingers share the same programming network, i.e. show ‘motor equivalence’. Here we first show that feedback-appropriate motor programming for grasps with atypical hand postures readily transfers to stereotypical precision grasps. In stark contrast, however, we find no evidence for an analogous transfer of the programming for grasps using tools to the same stereotypical precision grasps. These findings have important implications for our understanding of body schema. Although the extension of the limb that is afforded by tool use may be incorporated into the body schema, the programming of a grasping movement made with tools appears to resist such incorporation. It could be the case that the proprioceptive signals from the limb can be easily updated to reflect the end of a tool held in the hand, but the motor programs and sensory signals associated with grasping with the thumb and finger cannot be easily adapted to control the opening and closing of a tool. Instead, new but well-practiced motor programs are put in place for tool use that do not exhibit motor equivalence with manual grasping.

Analogical Transfer by Spanish–English Bilinguals: Implications for Educational and Employment Settings

ABSTRACTThe present research investigated analogical transfer during problem solving by bilinguals. In a study with 50 Spanish–English bilinguals, participants solved a target problem whose solution was similar to that of a preceding source problem. The source problem was always presented in the 2nd language; the target problem was always presented in the 1st language. The results showed that when participants understood a key structural feature shared by the source and target problems, they solved the target problem more often than others. Participants’ performance was not related to their proficiency in the language of the source problem (i.e., the 2nd language).

Emergence of Organizational Routines in Entrepreneurial Ventures

Organizational shared schemata, the common understanding of the overall task of an organization and agreement about business practices, are the core component of organizational routines and source of internal cohesion. The emergence of shared schemata and organizational routines in entrepreneurial ventures are both under-researched areas. Using an exploratory case study we focus on the process through which shared schemata emerge to lay the foundation for routines in new firms. Shared schemata emerge through a three-stage process: individual schemata emergence, partially shared schemata emergence and organizationally shared schemata emergence. Analogical transfer, strong foundational leadership, and horizontal interaction among employees facilitate the development of individual schemata and their evolution into the shared schemata underlying organizational routines.

Modeling of technological performance trends using design theory

Functional technical performance usually follows an exponential dependence on time but the rate of change (the exponent) varies greatly among technological domains. This paper presents a simple model that provides an explanatory foundation for these phenomena based upon the inventive design process. The model assumes that invention – novel and useful design – arises through probabilistic analogical transfers that combine existing knowledge by combining existing individual operational ideas to arrive at new individual operating ideas. The continuing production of individual operating ideas relies upon injection of newbasicindividual operating ideas that occurs through coupling of science and technology simulations. The individual operational ideas that result from this process are then modeled as being assimilated in components of artifacts characteristic of a technological domain. According to the model, two effects (differences in interactions among components for different domains and differences in scaling laws for different domains) account for the differences found in improvement rates among domains whereas the analogical transfer process is the source of the exponential behavior. The model is supported by a number of known empirical facts: further empirical research is suggested to independently assess further predictions made by the model.

NEW VEHICLE DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM USING DATA COMBINE AND COMMUNICATION

This paper proposed a new vehicle diagnostic system which can combine and analyze C-CAN, B-CAN and analog signals and transfer their data and analyzing results to another mobile system by using LTE. By using this system to a vehicle, small-scale long-hour test is possible on actual running vehicle. This system was implemented and verified by testing for actual vehicle.

The Simulation of Situation Models Aids Analogical Transfer Between Algebra Problems

Several studies on analogical transfer to algebra word problems have demonstrated that adapting solutions learned from worked examples to nonisomorphic problems of the same type is challenging and that most instructional aids do not alleviate this difficulty. At the same time, various authors have suggested that transfer difficulties sometimes originate in students’ lack of disposition to relate algebraic formulas to the real-world situations to which they refer. We designed a noninteractive intervention encouraging students to elaborate situation models for base and target problems, and to ground algebraic formalisms in these representations. One experimental group simulated situation models by physical object manipulation, whereas another experimental group performed those simulations mentally. Both conditions outperformed a control group that did not run simulations. This intervention was more effective when the transformations posed by target problems were intrinsically more difficult to assimilate into the learned equation. Implications for the design of instructional interventions are discussed.

Exploring Organizational Phenomena Through the Lens of Construal Level Theory

Construal level theory (CLT), a framework in social psychology focused on the levels of abstraction at which people mentally represent targets, is attracting growing interest in the fields of organizational behavior and organizational cognition. This symposium offers empirical evidence of the importance of construal level theory for understanding important organizational phenomena. In this symposium, we present five methodologically diverse papers that investigate team diversity, learning, person-organization fit and performance. The symposium also suggests additional applications of construal level theory for research on topics relevant to organizational behavior and organizational cognition. Distance Facilitates Analogical Transfer in Learning Presenter: Cheryl Wakslak; U. of Southern California Presenter: Susanna Stone; New York U. Presenter: Yaacov Trope; New York U. Diversity Experienced as Psychological Distance from the Team: Insights via Construal Level Theory Presenter: Yurianna Kim; The U. of Texas at Austin Presenter: David A. Harrison; The U. of Texas at Austin Presenter: Luis Martins; The U. of Texas at Austin Are Job Seekers Attracted to the Organization or to the Sector? Presenter: Arne Vanderstukken; KU Leuven Presenter: Anja Van den Broeck; KU Leuven Presenter: Karin Proost; KU Leuven Construal Level and Team Performance in Multicultural Teams Presenter: Sujin Jang; INSEAD Presenter: Jean-Nicolas Reyt; McGill U.

The Cognitive Science of Learning: Concepts and Strategies for the Educator and Learner.

Education is the fundamental process used to develop and maintain the professional skills of physicians. Medical students, residents, and fellows are expected to learn considerable amounts of information as they progress toward board certification. Established practitioners must continue to learn in an effort to remain up-to-date in their clinical realm. Those responsible for educating these populations endeavor to teach in a manner that is effective, efficient, and durable. The study of learning and performance is a subdivision of the field of cognitive science that focuses on how people interpret and process information and how they eventually develop mastery. A deeper understanding of how individuals learn can empower both educators and learners to be more effective in their endeavors. In this article, we review a number of concepts found in the literature on learning and performance. We address both the theoretical principles and the practical applications of each concept. Cognitive load theory, constructivism, and analogical transfer are concepts particularly beneficial to educators. An understanding of goal orientation, metacognition, retrieval, spaced learning, and deliberate practice will primarily benefit the learner. When these concepts are understood and incorporated into education and study, the effectiveness of learning is significantly improved.

Digital All-Pass Filter Modeling Based on Desired Group Delay Using Advanced Material: A Review on the Signal Processing Part

This paper presents a review on three types of techniques in designing digital all-pass filters based on group delay. All the three methods use the same basic concept rooting back to the requirement of a stable transfer function of the filter which should be a minimum-phase type, and the denominator group delay. The most optimized of the three is chosen to be implemented in MATLAB in order to decrease the group delay variation of a 5th order Chebyshev low-pass filter with cut-off frequency of 160 MHz. The digital transfer function of the low-pass filter is obtained from the analog transfer function by means of bilinear transformation. The sampling frequency of the digital LPF is 100 times the cut-off ffrequency to retain the response of the analog LPF. Both of the filters are then cascaded together and the overall group delays variations are analyzed. The variations of group delay shows a reduction but the price paid is the increase of the overall group delay of the system.

A Typology of Internal Linguistic Development Factors (Based on the Slavic Languages)

This article examines word-formational restructuring of lexical elements (lexemes, paradigmatic forms) as an important method for preserving categorical meanings in paradigmatic forms. Resuffixation derivation as the most important word-formational process is presented in the context of productive linguistic patterns or models and their analogical transfer.

Toward Wide-Band High-Resolution Analog-to-Digital Converters Using Hybrid Filter Bank Architecture

The paper presents the problem of design and simulation of a high-speed wide-band high-resolution analog-to-digital (ADC) converter working in a bandpass scenario. Such converters play a crucial role in software-defined radio and in cognitive radio technology. One way to circumvent the limits of today’s ADC technologies is to split the analog input signal into multiple components and then sample them with ADCs in parallel. The two main split approaches, time interleaved and frequency splitting, can be modeled using a filter bank paradigm, where each of these two architectures requires a specific analysis for its design. In this research, the frequency splitting approach was implemented with the use of a hybrid filter bank ADC, which requires an output digital filter bank perfectly matched to the input analog filter bank. To achieve this end, an analog transfer function, together with an assumption of strictly band-limited input signal, has been used to design the digital filter bank so far. In contrast, the author proposes dropping the band-limit assumption and shows that the out-of-band input signal has to be taken into account when designing a hybrid filter bank.

Resolution‐enhanced sturdy MASH delta–sigma modulator for wideband low‐voltage applications

A resolution-enhanced sturdy multi-stage noise shaping (MASH) delta–sigma modulator is presented. By employing the Leslie-Singh architecture in the first stage and an appropriate second stage digital filtering, the proposed structure could achieve much higher resolution [>80 dB signal-to-quantisation noise ratio] when compared with a traditional sturdy MASH, at a lower oversampling ratio (e.g. 8X). Interestingly, the mismatch between digital and analogue transfer functions is inherently shaped so that the structure is not sensitive to opamp finite gain error. Both these properties make the proposed structure suitable for wideband low-voltage applications. Behavioural simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed structure when compared with the prior art of its high performance delta–sigma counterparts.

Sleep promotes analogical transfer in problem solving

Analogical problem solving requires using a known solution from one problem to apply to a related problem. Sleep is known to have profound effects on memory and information restructuring, and so we tested whether sleep promoted such analogical transfer, determining whether improvement was due to subjective memory for problems, subjective recognition of similarity across related problems, or by abstract generalisation of structure. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to a set of source problems. Then, after a 12-h period involving sleep or wake, they attempted target problems structurally related to the source problems but with different surface features. Experiment 2 controlled for time of day effects by testing participants either in the morning or the evening. Sleep improved analogical transfer, but effects were not due to improvements in subjective memory or similarity recognition, but rather effects of structural generalisation across problems.

Breathing architecture: Conceptual architectural design based on the investigation into the natural ventilation of buildings

This study explores architectural design by examining air, fluid mechanics, and the natural ventilation of buildings. In this context, this research introduces a new way of dealing with the process of architectural synthesis. The proposed way can be used either to create new architectural projects or to rethink existing ones. This study is supported by previous investigation into the natural ventilation of buildings via computational and laboratory simulation (Stavridou, 2011; Stavridou and Prinos, 2013). The investigation into the natural ventilation of buildings provides information and data that affect architectural design through various parameters. The parameters of architectural synthesis that are influenced and discussed in this paper are the following: (i) inspiration and analogical transfer, (ii) initial conception of the main idea using computational fluid dynamics (digital design), (iii) development of the main idea through an investigatory process toward building form optimization, and (iv) form configuration, shape investigation, and other morphogenetic prospects. This study illustrates the effect of natural ventilation research on architectural design and thus produces a new approach to the architectural design process. This approach leads to an innovative kind of architecture called “breathing architecture.”

An empirical understanding of use of internal analogies in conceptual design

AbstractInternal analogies are created if the knowledge of source domain is obtained only from the cognition of designers. In this paper, an understanding of the use of internal analogies in conceptual design is developed by studying: the types of internal analogies; the roles of internal analogies; the influence of design problems on the creation of internal analogies; the role of experience of designers on the use of internal analogies; the levels of abstraction at which internal analogies are searched in target domain, identified in source domain, and realized in the target domain; and the effect of internal analogies from the natural and artificial domains on the solution space created using these analogies. To facilitate this understanding, empirical studies of design sessions from earlier research, each involving a designer solving a design problem by identifying requirements and developing conceptual solutions, without using any support, are used. The following are the important findings: designers use analogies from the natural and artificial domains; analogies are used for generating requirements and solutions; the nature of the design problem influences the use of analogies; the role of experience of designers on the use of analogies is not clearly ascertained; analogical transfer is observed only at few levels of abstraction while many levels remain unexplored; and analogies from the natural domain seem to have more positive influence than the artificial domain on the number of ideas and variety of idea space.

Effects of Topic Familiarity on Analogical Transfer in Problem-Solving: A Think-Aloud Study of Two Singular Cases

We conducted a qualitative research of case studies based on think-aloud protocols. The aim was to carry out in-depth analyse secondary students’ cognitive difficulties appearing in early stages of transfer processes in problem-solving. The task was to relate several source problems to a target problem, in order to solve it effectively. Source and target problems had different Surface and/or Structural similarities. In this paper, the solvers’ high or low Familiarity with the problem stories on transfer processes was also focused on. Two emergent instructional phenomena are described, both associated to specific students’ cognitive obstacles to achieve success in solving the target problem: the ‘Screen effect’ and the ‘Sisyphus effect’. The obstacles were harder for low Familiarity problems.

The place for synthesis

Vygotsky was a brilliant literary scholar whose role in psychology borrows substantially from his interests in and fascination with literature and theatre. The central question for Vygotsky’s theory was aesthetic synthesis – the emergence of generalized feelings in human life-experiences. The critical empirical example for the emergence of affective synthesis for Vygotsky was the short story by Ivan Bunin, ‘Legkoe dykhanie’. My task in this article is to analyse Vygotsky’s way of conceptualizing dialectical synthesis as a general psychological process. I demonstrate that Vygotsky succeeded in locating the empirical phenomena where such syntheses can be observed, and proceeded halfway towards creating a general model of affective synthesis. Yet he failed to complete the task due to the limitations of the analogical transfer of the notion of short circuit into the psychological realm. The problem of synthesis remains unsolved up to the present day. Possible ways of solving it require formalization of the notion of double negation that has been used in dialectical philosophies, but has not been encoded into psychology’s research methodologies.

Individual differences in mind wandering while reading predict lower rates of analogical transfer

Mind wandering has been argued to both impair and facilitate performance on complex cognitive tasks such as those encountered in the classroom. On the one hand, mind wandering may prevent students from fully encoding and remembering to-be-learned information. On the other hand, mind wandering may allow learners to consider to-be-learned information in the light of other contexts and situations. The current study examined the relationship between individual differences in mind wandering while reading and performance on an analogical reasoning task that required participants to recognize similarities between an unsolved problem and information presented in a set of passages. Across two studies, we found no evidence that participants who mind wandered more performed better on the reasoning task than participants who mind wandered less. In fact, the opposite pattern was observed, suggesting that the propensity to mind wander may put individuals at a disadvantage when it comes to analogical reasoning.

Credit cards, financial responsibility, and college students: an experimental study

Policymakers are concerned about the limited financial expertise of young adults because their naivete leaves them vulnerable to the perils of excess debt. We report the results of three experiments designed to investigate college students' mental representations of credit cards, focusing on linkages to financial responsibility. Students complete an inferential reasoning task in which they assess conditional relations to provide evidence on their rudimentary understanding of what credit card ownership entails. The findings suggest that students readily associate credit card ownership with the need to exercise financial responsibility. Yet, they have difficulty correctly assessing conditional relations. While these young adults believe that they should be financially responsible, their mental models do not fully describe the linkages between credit card ownership and financial responsibility. Additional investigation indicates that analogical transfer can be used to enrich students' mental models, underscoring an obligation to exercise financial responsibility.

Explaining the abundance of distant analogies in naturalistic observations of experts.

Analogical reasoning is a landmark of human cognition. Based on the realization that the elements of two situations are organized by similar systems of relations, analogical inferences allow the transfer of knowledge structures from a better-known situation (the base analog) to a target situation that is relatively less understood (the target analog). Experimental research has demonstrated that the retrieval of base analogs from long term memory in response to the proceesing of a target analog is infrequent in the lack of semantic similarities between both situations (Gick and Holyoak, 1980; Keane, 1987; Gentner et al., 1993; Trench and Minervino, 2014). With the turn of the century, several naturalistic observations of experts working in their domains of expertise yielded a more complex picture. While molecular biologists (Dunbar, 1997) and psychologists (Saner and Schunn, 1999) still exhibited mostly within-domain analogizing, the observation of journalists and politicians (Blanchette and Dunbar, 2001), teachers (Richland et al., 2004), managers (Bearman et al., 2007) and design engineers (Christensen and Schunn, 2007) showed a more frequent use of long-distance analogies. The naturalistic study by Kretz and Krawczyk (2014) on the use of analogies by economists also demonstrates an abundance of distant analogies in the sevice of an impressive variety of communicative purposes, most of which were not evident in prior research. These goals included the generation of concrete source examples of more general target concepts, the formation of visual images of source concepts, the addition of colorful speech, the inclusion of a target into a source concept, or the differentiation between source and target concepts. With these results in mind, the time is ripe to assert that the naturalistic observation of experts shows a more flexible use of analogical sources than is predicted by experimental studies on analogical transfer, and simulated by dominant computer models of analogical retrieval (e.g., MAC/FAC, Forbus et al., 1995; LISA, Hummel and Holyoak, 1997). How, then, to explain this analogical abundance? In trying to account for the contrasting results of the experimental and the naturalistic traditions, the default explanations revolve around the expertise of the analogizers and the psychological constraints of the target tasks. I will argue that although both factors are likely to bear some responsibility for this empirical inconsistency, there are reasons to expect a heavier weight of the latter.