ABSTRACT
In one form or another, reasoning by analogy, or analogical reasoning, has been a topic of continuing interest to psychologists and educators throughout the 20th century. Historically, the theoretical contexts were quite diverse, including functionalism (e.g., Thorndike, 1903; Thorndike & Woodworth, 1901), Piaget’s structuralism (e.g., Inhelder & Piaget, 1958), several varieties of behaviorism (e.g., Cantor, 1965; Hull, 1939; McGeoch, 1942; Postman & Schwartz, 1964), and Gestalt psychology (Duncker, 1945; Duncker & Krechevsky, 1939; Luchins, 1942; Sobel, 1939), among others (Judd, 1908; Spearman, 1923). In the context of modern cognitive psychology, much of the recent work, including the research described in this chapter, has involved problem solving (Brown, 1989; Burstein, 1986; Daehler & Chen, 1993; Gentner, 1989; Gholson, Dattel, Morgan, & Eymard, 1989; Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1983; Holyoak & Thagard, 1989; Novick, 1988; Pierce & Gholson, 1994; Reed, 1987; Reed, Dempster, & Ettinger, 1985; Ross, 1987, 1989), with an emphasis on competing accounts of how existing knowledge is organized, represented, and transferred (Brown, Kane, & Echols, 1986; Falkenhainer, Forbus, & Gentner, 1990; Gentner, 1983, 1988; Gentner & Toupin, 1986; Goswami, 1992; Halford, 1993; Hammond, 1989; Pierce, Duncan, Gholson, Ray, & Kamhi, 1993; Schank & Abelson, 1977; Sweller, 1988, 1989).
