Surface matches prevail over distant analogs during retrieval.

Laboratory studies using a reception paradigm have found that memory items sharing similar entities and relations with a working memory cue (surface matches) are easier to retrieve than items sharing only a system of abstract relations (structural matches). However, the naturalistic approach has contended that the observed supremacy of superficial similarity could have originated in a shallow processing of somewhat inconsequential stories, as well as in the inadvertent inclusion of structural similarity during the construction of surface matches. We addressed the question of which kind of similarity dominates retrieval through a hybrid paradigm that combines the ecological validity of the naturalistic production paradigm with the experimental control of the reception paradigm. In Experiment 1 we presented participants with a target story that maintained either superficial or structural similarities with two popular movies that had received a careful processing prior to the experimental session. Experiment 2 replicated the same procedure with highly viralized public events. In line with traditional laboratory results, surface matches were significantly better retrieved than structural matches, confirming the supremacy of superficial similarities during retrieval.

Analogical inferences mediated by relational categories.

The standard approach posits that analogical inferences are generated by copying unmapped base relations, substituting mapped target entities for source entities, and generating slots for base entities that have not found a correspondence in the target. In the present study we argue that this mechanism does not adequately explain the generation of inferences mediated by relational categories. Experiment 1 revealed that for analogies in which the gist of the information to be transferred is better captured by relational categories than by explicit relations, inferences are more concerned with reinstantiating the base relational category than with ensuring that the relation of the inference resembles that of the base. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with analogies between situations maintaining a higher degree of semantic and contextual distance. The following experiments addressed whether there are further restrictions that guide a more fine-grained selection of exemplars. Experiment 3 revealed that when no relevant differences exist between compared situations, the exemplars included in analogical inferences tend to match the base exemplars along salient dimensions of the relational category to which both exemplars belong. In turn, Experiment 4 replicated this finding with analogies between situations maintaining some degree of semantic and contextual distance. The study adds to a growing literature recognizing the role of categorization in analogical reasoning. The challenges posed by the present results to the traditional view of analogical inference are discussed, as well as the prospects of the categorial mechanism for explaining other types of analogies not included in the present study.

The effect of surface similarities on the retrieval of analogous daily-life events.

Against the typical results of laboratory studies, it has been suggested that retrieving distant analogs from autobiographical memory would be relatively easy, since we frequently encode daily-life events in terms of overlearned relational categories that allow for a uniform abstract encoding. In each of two experiments, we formed two groups of participants who, as determined by a questionnaire presented during a first session, had experienced an event corresponding to a schema-governed category (Experiment 1) or to a system of schema-governed categories (Experiment 2). While the episodes reported by one of the groups belonged to the same domain as the target analog to be presented during the second session, those of the other group belonged to a different domain. During a temporally and contextually separated session, the experimenters presented both groups with a target analog belonging to the schema-governed category for which participants had reported a base analog. Participants had to retrieve an autobiographical episode that they considered analogous to the situation presented by the experimenter. From those analogs reported in the first phase, those pertaining to the same domain of the target were more retrieved than those pertaining to a different domain. Results showed that analogical retrieval is driven largely by surface similarities, even when base and target analogs have been encoded in terms of the same schema-governed category.

Analogies Without Commonalities? Evidence of Re-representation via Relational Category Activation.

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.

The Understanding of Visual Metaphors by the Congenitally Blind.

Results from a narrow set of empirical studies suggest that blind individuals' comprehension of metaphorical expressions does not differ from that of sighted participants. However, prominent accounts of metaphor comprehension yield different predictions about the blind's ability to comprehend visual metaphors. While conceptual metaphor theory leads to predicting that blind individuals should lag behind their sighted peers in making sense of this particular kind of utterances, from traditional accounts of analogical reasoning it follows that blind individuals' ability to comprehend the literal meaning of visual concepts might be sufficient to support their metaphorical application. In Experiment 1, 20 sighted and 20 congenitally blind participants were asked to select the most appropriate meaning for visual, grasping and filler metaphorical expressions. Results failed to reveal group differences for any type of metaphorical expressions. In order to implement a more stringent test of blind individuals' ability to understand visual metaphors, in Experiment 2 blind and sighted participants were presented with very novel figurative expressions, as indicated by low or no occurrence in the "Google" corpus. In line with the results of Experiment 1, blind participants' comprehension of visual metaphors was both high in absolute terms and comparable to that of sighted participants. We advance some speculations about the mechanisms by which blind individuals comprehend visual metaphors and we discuss the implications of these results for current theories of metaphor.

El papel de la similitud de objetos en el pensamiento analógico: el enfoque de la asignación categorial / The role of object similarities on analogical thinking: the category assignment approach

El objetivo de este trabajo fue determinar el efecto que las similitudes de objeto tienen sobre las evaluaciones de calidad de una analogía. Los participantes divididos en dos grupos puntuaron en qué medida consideraban que ciertos pares de hechos eran análogos. Mientras que al primer grupo se les resaltó la relación implicada en las situaciones a comparar, al segundo se les enmarcó dicha comparación en una categoría relacional de esquema. Las evaluaciones de calidad del primer grupo fueron mayores cuando las situaciones comparadas involucraban objetos taxonómicamente similares, efecto que no fue hallado en el segundo grupo. En este grupo, lo que afectó la evaluación de las analogías fueron las similitudes de objeto relacionadas con una dimensión de la categoría esquemática que enmarcaba la comparación. Los resultados se interpretan desde un enfoque alternativo sobre el razonamiento analógico ­el enfoque de la asignación categorial. Se discuten implicaciones para este campo disciplinar. (AU)

The present study was aimed at assessing the effect of object similarities in evaluations of the quality of analogies. Two groups of participants received pairs of situations with the task of assessing the extent to which they considered them to be analogous. Whereas in the first group the relation involved in the situations to be compared was highlighted, in the second group comparisons were framed by a schema-governed category. Quality evaluations of the first group were higher when the compared situations involved taxonomically similar objects, but no such effect was found within the second group. In this group, the evaluations of the quality of analogies were affected by object similarities related to central dimensions of the framing schema-governed category. We explain these findings within an alternative perspective on analogical reasoning­ the category assignment approach. Implications for this field of research are discussed.(AU)

Promoting interdomain analogical transfer: When creating a problem helps to solve a problem.

Research on analogical thinking has devised several ways of promoting an abstract encoding of base analogs, thus rendering them more retrievable during later encounters with similar situations lacking surface similarities. Recent studies have begun to explore ways of facilitating transfer at retrieval time, which could facilitate the retrieval of distant analogs learned within contexts that were not specially directed to emphasize their abstract structure. Such studies demonstrate that comparing a target problem to an analogous problem helps students retrieve base analogs that lack surface similarities. To devise more portable ways of enhancing analogical transfer, Experiment 1 replicated Kurtz and Loewenstein's (Memory & Cognition, 35, 334-341, 2007) target-comparison procedure with an additional condition in which participants compared the target to a nonanalogous problem before attempting to reach its solution. Although comparing two analogous targets outperformed the standard transfer condition in promoting analogical transfer, comparing nonanalogous problems did not yield a transfer advantage. Based on prior studies that showed that the activity of creating analogous problems during their initial encoding elicits a more abstract representation of base analogs, in Experiment 2 we assessed whether constructing a second analogous target problem at retrieval time helps participants retrieve superficially dissimilar base analogs. As predicted, target invention increased the retrieval of distant sources. In both experiments we found an association between the quality of the generated schemas and the probability of retrieving a distant base analog from memory.

Seek, and ye shall find: Differences between spontaneous and voluntary analogical retrieval.

The present study tackles two overlooked aspects of analogical retrieval: (a) whether argumentation activities elicit a spontaneous search for analogical sources, and (b) whether strategic search can relax the superficial bias typically obtained in experimental studies of analogical retrieval. In Experiment 1, participants had to generate arguments for a target situation under three conditions: without indication to use analogies, with indication to use analogies, and with indication to search for sources within domains provided by the experimenters. Results showed that while voluntary search yields analogical retrievals reliably, the argumentation activity seldom elicits spontaneous remindings. A second set of results demonstrated that the superficial bias can be strategically relaxed, leading to a majority of distant retrievals. Experiment 2 replicated this result with the instruction to search within domains different from that of the target, and without providing a list of specific domains. The theoretical and educational implications of these findings are discussed.

The Role of Surface Similarity in Analogical Retrieval: Bridging the Gap Between the Naturalistic and the Experimental Traditions.

Blanchette and Dunbar (2000) have claimed that when participants are allowed to draw on their own source analogs in the service of analogical argumentation, retrieval is less constrained by surface similarity than traditional experiments suggest. In two studies, we adapted this production paradigm to control for the potentially distorting effects of analogy fabrication and uneven availability of close and distant sources in memory. Experiment 1 assessed whether participants were reminded of central episodes from popular movies while generating analogies for superficially similar versus superficially dissimilar target situations. In Experiment 2, we modified this procedure to assess the retrieval of autobiographic memories, more familiar to participants than fictional episodes. Both studies revealed a strong effect of surface similarity on the retrieval of participants' own sources, thus suggesting that the superficial bias typically observed in experimental studies--and simulated by most computational models--does not originate in a lack of ecological validity.

La comprensión de metáforas no requiere realizar simulaciones sensorio-motoras del dominio base / Comprehending a metaphor does not require sensory-motor simulations of the base domain

Existe evidencia de que las personas empleamos metáforas conceptuales (MCs) para interpretar expresiones metafóricas (EMs), aunque los datos disponibles con respecto a si la comprensión de éstas EMs requiere simulaciones sensorio-motoras de los dominios base de esas MCs es escasa y equívoca. Se llevó a cabo un experimento para determinar si dichas simulaciones sensorio-motoras son necesarias o enriquecen al menos la comprensión de EMs. Videntes y no videntes de nacimiento parafrasearon EMs novedosas derivadas de la MC ver-comprender. El nivel de comprensión alcanzado fue evaluado por jueces independientes. Los no videntes de nacimiento mostraron una muy buena comprensión de estas EMs y su rendimiento en esta tarea no fue inferior a la de los videntes. Se concluye que las simulaciones sensorio-motoras no son necesarias ni enriquecen la comprensión de EMs y que las MCs amodales resultan suficientes para la tarea. Se discuten las implicaciones de los resultados obtenidos para el enfoque corporeizado de la teoría de metáfora conceptual de Lakoff y Johnson.

There is evidence for the idea that people employ conceptual metaphors (CMs) to interpret metaphorical expressions (MEs), although the available data regarding the thesis that comprehending MEs requires sensory-motor simulations of the base domains of such CMs is scarce and ambiguous. An experiment was carried out to determine whether such sensory-motor simulations are necessary or at least enrich the comprehension of MEs. Sighted and congenitally blind subjects paraphrased novel MEs derived from the seeing-understanding CM. The congenitally blind showed very good comprehension of these MEs, and their performance on this task was not inferior compared to the sighted. It is concluded that sensory-motor simulations are not necessary nor do they enrich the comprehension of MEs, and that amodal CMs are enough for this task. Implications of the obtained results for the embodied view of Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory are discussed.

The need for an ecological approach within the study and comprehension of cognitive processes

Los procesos cognitivos organizan y transforman inferencialmente la información sensorio-perceptiva del medio. La base de dichos procesos es ecológica. Se entiende como ecológica toda relación entre un organismo viviente y su medio para alcanzar los balances entre su medio interno y externo. Esas relaciones permiten explicar las funciones preservadoras de la vida. La representación mental es una función preservadora de la vida. Cada especie desarrolla (como requisito de superviviencia) su propia representación holográfica del medio ambiente, pero esta representación adquiere la máxima complejidad cognitiva en la especie humana. Si un desbalance se perpetúa, lleva a la muerte del organismo y a la extinción de la especie. En esto reside la importancia del enfoque ecológico y la profundización del mismo. La explicación de los procesos cognitivos ha avanzado a través de un esquema ecológico tipo abajo/arriba, bottom-up, más que a través de esquemas formales - proposicionales de tipo teoricista arriba / abajo o top-down.

Cognitive processes are information, meaning, structure organization and transformation processes, most of which are inferential. Then, an important question about cognitive processes is: What is their deepest basis? Where, when, how and at what level do they originate? Here, it is proposed that the original and deepest basis of cognitive processes is essentially ecological and sustained on the permanent unity and relationship between the living organism and its environment. We understand as ecological the undecomposable union between a living organism and its environment, as well as every kind of immediate and stepwise relationship between them. The relationships between a living organism and its environment is held everyday and continuously in order to get its life-preserving resources and to adopt their adequate, best or most successful actions and reactions over the environment, as well as to reach its necessary internal and external balances with and within it. In these terms, the elementary perception and categorization are seen as basic cognitive processes originated in that permanent and whole ecological relationship. This way, representation systems and information processes as developed by each species are seen as basic preservation functions (life-preservation functions) in the teleonomic sense given by Pittendrigh (1958) and later used by Lorenz (1986) within his ethological approach. These arguments support the idea that any species, whatever simpler or complex it may be, whenever it is endowed of minimal sensors (elementary sensory perceptive receptors) for light (sight), odor (olfaction), sound (hearing), taste and tactile stimuli, etc., can form and must have a minimal representation of its immediate surroundings; and so that those living organisms can then count on or have at their own's disposal a minimal mental representation of the immediate and customary environment in which they live and survive along all their lifetime. Otherwise these living organisms will soon and easily die, and its species will be exposed to be extinguished soon too. So, all these argumentations are required and provided in order to analyze and explain the origin of cognitive processes within an ecological bottom-up direction. The main approaches adopted to sustain this ecological view originate in Gibson's (1979) studies on direct perception, in Rosch's (1978) approaches to natural and prototypical categorization of concept-formation, and, finally, it is also found in different attempts by Schank and Abelson (1977) and other authors to describe, for example, the formation of semantic primitives, or of schemata and scripts on alternative and ever changing areas of commonplace social experience and representations. One cue is to easily differentiate between the role and definition between defined attributes and characteristic or prototypical attributes when referring to concepts and their schemes or networks of relationships. There may be many others authors and examples that could be given to prove this ecological approach, however the above mentioned seemed to us prototypical and sufficient as to be especially included and treated.

La capacidad de la teoría de proyección de la estructura y la teoría de la metáfora conceptual para explicar la generación y el uso de metáforas conceptuales: una comparación crítica / The capacity of the projection of the structure theory and the conceptual metaphor theory in order to explain the generation and the use of conceptual metaphors: a critical comparison

Se comparan las capacidades del modelo proposicional de Gentner (1983, 1989) acerca del pensamiento analógico y de la teoría experiencial de la metáfora conceptual de Lakoff y Johnson (1980, 1999) para explicar el origen y el uso de metáforas conceptuales. Se postula que los mecanismos propuestos por la primera teoría no son suficientes para explicar el desarrollo de analogías que se apoyan en metáforas conceptuales preexistentes, y que el formato proposicional que emplea no logra captar las bases experienciales de las metáforas conceptuales. Se señala que, si bien el énfasis experiencial de la teoría de la metáfora conceptual es acertado, esta teoría no ha logrado proponer constructos representacionales adecuados para desarrollar su teoría en un nivel informal y formal, algo que sí ha hecho la teoría de proyección de la estructura. Se indica que, irónicamente, la teoría recurre a constructos proposicionales contrarios a su tendencia experiencialista.

Efecto del contenido en la resolución de tareas de conjunción probabilísticas / Content effects in probability judgments

El error de conjunción (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983) se estudió en dos escenarios de probabilidad que suponen distintos contenidos en las tareas a resolver: ficcional y realista (Teigen, Martinussen & Lund, 1996). Participaron voluntariamente 83 sujetos de ambos sexos, alumnos de Psicología de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, quienes resolvieron ambas tareas. Las diferencias halladas en las cantidades de errores de conjunción al comparar las ejecuciones en los dos escenarios fueron altamente significativas. Los resultados reflejan una disminución de los errores cuando se presentan tareas realistas en lugar de ficcionales. Tales hallazgos indican la relevancia de considerar elementos socioecológicos tanto en razonamientos probabilísticos (Hertwig & Gigerenzer, 1999) como en las estrategias didácticas de enseñanza de probabilidad.

The role of extra-contextual and contextual similarities in analogical mapping

Se llevó a cabo un experimento para determinar la validez psicológica del tratamiento que recibe el componente semántico en el establecimiento de correspondencias analógico por parte de la Teoría de Proyección de la Estructura de Gentner (1983, 1989; Gentner & Markman, 1997) y la Teoría de las Múltiples Restricciones de Holyoak y Thagard (1989a, 1995). Los participantes del grupo experimental recibieron un texto fuente en el que se narraba que un hecho (causa) había provocado un segundo hecho (efecto). Siendo enfrentados después a un texto objetivo en el que se describía un hecho objetivo (similar al hecho efecto fuente) de causa desconocida, se les pidió que, basándose en la narración fuente, hipotetizaran cuál, entre dos hechos candidatos a causa, podía haber provocado el hecho objetivo. La analogía era ambigua si se seguían criterios semánticos y no podía desambiguarse a partir de criterios sintácticos o pragmáticos. Los participantes de este grupo decidieron sus correspondencias siguiendo similitudes semánticas contextuales y no en cambio el tipo de similitudes semánticas extra-contextuales incorporadas por las teorías nombradas en sus modelos computacionales. Los participantes del grupo control debían realizar la misma tarea que el grupo experimental (hipotetizar cuál podía haber sido la causa del hecho objetivo), pero no recibían ningún análogo previo. Estos participantes eligieron como causa el hecho alternativo al elegido por el grupo experimental, lo que indicó que la elección de este grupo no estuvo determinada por la plausibilidad intrínseca, en el dominio objetivo, del hecho elegido. Los resultados son discutidos considerando la crítica de Hofstadter y el Grupo FARG (1995) a la forma en que la semántica es tratada por el modelo estándar del establecimiento de correspondencias analógico