ABSTRACT
Analogy has traditionally been defined by use of a contrast definition: analogies represent associations or connections between things distinct from the 'normal' associations or connections determined by our 'ordinary' concepts and categories. Research into analogy, however, is also distinct from research into concepts and categories in terms of the richness of its process models. A number of detailed, plausible models of the analogical process exist (Forbus, Gentner and Law, 1995; Holyoak and Thagard, 1995): the same cannot be said of categorisation.
In this paper we argue that in the absence of an acceptable account of categorisation, this contrast definition amounts to little more than a convenient fiction which, whilst useful in constraining the scope of cognitive investigations, confuses the relationship between analogy and categorisation, and prevents models of these processes from informing one another. We present a study which addresses directly the question of whether analogy can be distinguished from categorisation by contrasting categorisational and analogical processes, and following from this, whether theories of analogy, notably Gentner's structure mapping theory (Gentner, 1983; Forbus et al, ibid.), can also be used to model parts of the categorisation process.
