Causal Relationship Between Analogical Reasoning

An important goal of cognitive science is understanding the substance and structure of the thinking. But in the process there is a big challenge which comes from two main features of the thinking:one is the structure sensitivity among the things relationship between the capacity of encoding and manipulating; the other is the application of the knowledge learned to solve similar problems flexibily. In the process of analogical reasoning, sensitivity and flexibility can be obvious manifested. In addition, analogical reasoning is an important way to learning knowledge and cultivating creativity. Analogical reasoning is not only the base of solving daily problems, but aslo can conduct scientific research. Therefore, the research for analogical reasoning will not only help people to exploring the nature and structure of thinking more deeply, but also help people acquiring new knowledge and skills better.There are two basic paradigms in Analogical reasoning. One is the four-term proportional paradigm, the other is the problem-solving paradigm. Classical analogical reasoning with "A:B::C:? (D)" the proportion of four terms, such as:"Birds:Air::fish:? (Water)." This was a form of measurement of IQ. Problem-solving analogical reasoning provide information about a story problem to be solved (source) or some form of reminders (analogies) at first, and then give a reminders have the same principle with the answer problem (target) to subjects to resolve. Generally agreed that problem-solving analogical reasoning is mainly deals with the structure of relations. In both cognitive level and cognitive difficulty, problem-solving analogical reasoning is significantly higher than the classical analogical reasoning.The authors propose the hypotheses that the type and the content of cause relationship would affect analogical reasoning. Before the relationship between analogical reasoning model were emphasized structure similarity match in the role of analogical reasoning, ignoring the content of the nature of causality. Lee and Holyoak's causal model emphasized the importance of understanding the content, particularly the causality content on the impact of analogical reasoning, which make up the deficiency of previous model. However, the causal model of Lee and Holyoak only considered one type of cause relationship (a number of reasons produce a result), the " generative " cause relationship and " preventive " cause relationship assessing the normative strength of arguments by analogy,without considering other types and contents of cause relationship. Experiment 1:An experiment on college students used 3 (cause structure:conjunctive structure, disjunctive structure, general structure)×3 (cause similarity:1/5,2/5,3/5) factorial design to test the hypotheses. The results showed that in the conjunctive structure, participants used the all-or-none strategy to make analogical inferences; in the disjunctive structure, participants used the disjunctive strategy to make analogical inferences; in the general structure without causality, participants made analogical inferences according to similarity of causes. Confidences of analogical inferences in the causal structures were significantly larger than those in the general structure.Experiment 2:An experiment on college students used 3 (the content of cause relationship: generative cause relationship, preventive cause relationship, general cause relationship) X 3 (cause similarity:20% vs50% vs80%)factorial design to test the hypotheses. The results showed that the " generative " cause relationship and " preventive " cause relationship affect analogical reasoning. general cause relationship in the conditions of the possibility of analog was significantly higher than non-causal inference. In preventive cause relationship, participants made analogical inferences increased with the degree of similarity.