The Cognitive Mechanism Of The Effect Of Object Similarity On The Analogical Mapping

Analogy was an important component of high level cognition. Studying the process of analogy was helpful for us to both understand the nature of analogical processing and solve the practical questions on the simulation of computer and programming teaching.Analogy was a high-level cognitive process that applied the principle from one domain to the other domain, including several stages such as access, mapping, evaluation, abstraction, inference and application. The core process in analogy was mapping. Not only did it need to perceive and mapping the object similarity based on perception between the two domains, but also it required to project relational similarity from one to the other based on the structure. The effect of object's similarity on the process of analogical mapping was a widely controversial view. There was great divergence between the views of different analogical researchers. On the basis of summaries of analogical theory and analysis of previous experiments, the study focused on the disagreement of previous research was to explore the cognitive mechanism of the effects of object similarity on the process of analogical mapping so that we could test and perfect theories of the relational shift theory and the relational primacy view by using eye movement tracking technique and the paradigm of the combination and separation of cross-mapping task. It included two experiments as follow.Experiment 1 investigated the different patterns of effects of object similarity on the process of analogical mapping between children and adults so that we couldexamine which hypothesis of the relational shift theory and the relational primacy view conformed to the real process of analogy. We designed relational similarity, the combination of object similarity and relational similarity and the separation of object similarity and relational similarity. It contained the same action as the base picture but with three perceptual distinct objects in the condition of relational similarity. The combination of object similarity and relational similarity was a cross-mapping design, in that contained the relational action and one of the objects of the base picture. The separation of object similarity and relational similarity contained the same action as base picture but with three perceptual distinct objects in the relational structure and one of the objects of the base picture existed in the outside of the relational structure. According to the theory of the relational shift theory, children interpreted analogy first in terms of object similarity with ignoring the underlying relation in common and then in terms of relational similarity. While the relational primacy view suggested that human possessed a mechanism dedicated to forming relational comparison, and that object similarity merely hindered this mechanism's performance so that the object similarity has no any effect on the analogical mapping once children understood the relation in common between the base picture and target picture. The results showed that the performance of children based on the relational mapping under the condition both of the combination of the object similarity and the relational similarity and the separation of object similarity and relational similarity were significantly lower than the condition of the relational similarity. The performances of children were not significant difference between the condition of the combination of the object similarity and the condition of the relational similarity and the separation of the object similarity and the relational similarity. There was no significant difference of children's performance among three conditions. It suggested that there was different pattern of effects of object similarity on the analogical mapping between the children and the adults. Such theses results further explained the relational shift theory.Experiment 2 further explored the effects of object similarity on the process ofanalogical mapping by using eye tracking techniques to divide different areas so that we could test the process of structural alignment in that how the adults transform focusing on the object similarity firstly to response on the basis of relational similarities. The results showed that the dwell time, the percentage of dwell time, the fixation times, the percentage of fixation times of the interest area on the cross-mapping objects of base and target picture in the condition of the combination of the object similarity and relational similarity were significantly higher than both the condition of the separation of the object similarity and the relational similarity. While some above measure indexes in the condition of the separation of the object similarity and the relational similarity were significantly lower than both the condition of the combination of the object similarity and the relational similarity. These indexes in the condition of the combination of the object similarity and relational similarity were higher than the ones in the condition of the separation of the object similarity and relational similarity. It demonstrated that the object similarity influenced on the process of analogical mapping of adults with the necessary condition in that the object similarity was combined with in the similar relational structure. There was a process of structural alignment of adults' analogical mapping in such the task that the competition existed between the object similarity and the relational similarity.We proposed a new view of primacy-constraint with alignment theory to explain the mechanism of the effects of object similarity on the processing of analogical mapping on the basis of our experimental data. Human preferred to process the object similarity in such a task that the object similarity and relational similarity existed simultaneously. However, there were different patterns of effect of the object similarity on the analogical mapping between children and adults. Children's relational performance reduced in the influence of object similarity. Conversely, Adults' relational performance did not chance in spite of the object similarity influenced the process of analogical mapping. It included a process of structural alignment. Moreover, it is necessary to combine the object similarity with therelational similarity if object similarity affected the process of analogical mapping of adults. The theory emphasized t analogy was a parallel processing that both the object similarity and relational similarity simultaneously attended. The object similarity promoted people to conduct structural alignment so that the relation was deeply processed and common relational structure was abstracted and applied in further analogy-...