ABSTRACT
A. Antonietti first presented the idea of partial analogies in solving an ill-defined problem. Prior to that, studies looking into the role of analogies in problem solving used complete analogies. Partial analogy should be effective in most situations as most analogical cues available in daily life are partial in nature. This chapter looks into the role of analogical transfer of partial analogies. The analogy problems were concerned about how to direct water to a target location. Each participant proceeded to solve one of the four versions of the analogy problem depending on the experimental condition to which s/he was assigned: partial analogies presented in the correct order, partial analogies presented in the reverse order , complete analogy; and unrelated analogy. Presenting a less useful partial analogy lowers instead of enhances the transfer in problem solving performance.
