Elsevier

Cognitive Development

Volume 13, Issue 4, October–November 1998, Pages 453-478
Cognitive Development

More evidence for a relational shift in the development of analogy: Children's performance on a causal-mapping task

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Abstract

Gentner (1988) has proposed a relational shift whereby children interpret analogy and metaphor first in terms of object similarity and then in terms of relational similarity. Goswami (1996) argues against the relational shift hypothesis, citing as evidence a study performed by Goswami and Brown (1989) in which 3-, 4-, and 6-year-old children were able to correctly complete pictorial A:B::C:? analogies based on familiar causal relations, and, contrary to the predictions of the relational shift hypothesis, made very few object-similarity errors despite the presence of an object-similarity choice. In the present experiment we obtained similarity ratings of Goswami and Brown's stimuli and found that the materials did not contain a true object similarity choice and therefore that study was not an adequate test of the relational shift hypothesis. After appropriate modifications to their methodology, we found that 4- and 5-year-old children's performance was consistent with the relational shift hypothesis: First, object-similarity errors were highly frequent initially and decreased with age; second, the rate of relational (correct) responding increased with age; and third, performance on the analogues was positively related to children's knowledge about the participating causal relations. We conclude by proposing an explanation for the relational shift based on an alignment view of similarity comparison and, further, suggest a new role for object similarity in children's analogical development.

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    This research was supported by an award from the National Science Foundation (SBR-95-11757) to Gentner, a grant from the National Institute of Education under Contract 400-31-0031 to the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and by Training Grant HD 07205 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the Psychology Department of the University of Illinois. The studies were carried out at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois. Preparation of the manuscript was supported in part by a fellowship to Gentner from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistic Research in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

    We thank Usha Goswami and Ann Brown for helpful discussions of these issues and for generously allowing us access to the stimulus materials and the individual data for Experiment 2 of the Goswami & Brown (1989) paper. Special thanks to Rebecca Campbell for her valuable contributions to the design and implementation of these experiments. We also thank Graeme Halford and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on this manuscript.

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