Splitting the Differences: A Structural Alignment View of Similarity

Markman, Arthur B.; Gentner, Dedre

doi:10.1006/jmla.1993.1027

Cited by 266 publications

(331 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…processing (e.g., Gentner et al, 2011;Kotovsky & Gentner, 1996;Markman & Gentner, 1993a), we would expect that the kinds of skeletal configurations that are highlighted as in previous comparisons would be more likely to be picked out in new cases. Such effects may be similar to chess experts' use of their knowledge of allowable spatial configurations in chess to quickly and accurately identify violations (Chase & Simon, 1973).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 87%

Detecting anomalous features in complex stimuli: The role of structured comparison.

Kurtz

Gentner

2013

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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The ability to detect anomalies in perceived stimuli is critical to a broad range of cognitive tasks, yet acquiring this ability often requires lengthy practice. In this research, we asked whether findings from research on analogical comparison can be used to aid in the acquisition of perceptual expertise. Building on findings that comparison can facilitate the detection of differences, the present research addressed two questions: (1) Does having an alignable comparison standard improve performance on a difficult detection task? (2) Can such comparison experience improve subsequent detection performance on single anomalous targets? Across 3 experiments, university undergraduates were asked to find an anomalous bone in drawings of animal skeletons. Target items including an anomaly were presented either alone or with a correct standard. Furthermore, to evaluate the impact of ease of alignment, the correct standard was presented either mirror-reversed (low alignable) or regular (high alignable). Results showed increased accuracy when a comparison standard was present and further gains when the standard was more easily alignable. In Experiment 3, we used a between-subjects design to reveal that advance comparison (as opposed to single-item training) led to improved detection of anomalies in subsequent novel examples presented as isolated targets. We conclude that the availability of a standard and ease of alignment promote encoding and processing. Furthermore, comparison-based learning confers an ongoing advantage even without standards for comparison. Therefore, task performance in application areas requiring detection of nonobvious anomalies can be improved by providing alignable standards next to targets or in advance training.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 87%

Detecting anomalous features in complex stimuli: The role of structured comparison.

Kurtz

Gentner

2013

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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“…On a conceptual level, feature complementarity can be related to the notion of alignability, which has been advanced by research on structural alignment in similarity comparisons (Gentner 1983;Gentner and Markman 1994). It has been proposed that the structural alignment process yields two types of relationships: commonalities and differences, which, in turn, can be classified as alignable or nonalignable (Markman and Gentner 1993). Both alignable and nonalignable differences describe the relationship between the attribute levels of the compared objects; however, nonalignable differences describe a scenario in which a given feature is present in one of the objects and absent in the other, whereas alignable differences describe a scenario in which objects have different (but nonzero) levels of a given attribute.…”

Section: Feature Complementarity In Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, noncomplementary features (e.g., different flavors) are considered alignable because all alternatives have corresponding features. Similarly, as long as all options have nonzero levels of performance on the attributes defined by the complementary features, these features would be considered alignable as well (Markman and Gentner 1993). To illustrate, option A's superiority on a given attribute (e.g., cavity prevention) does not imply that option B entirely lacks that attribute, but simply that option B underperforms on that attribute relative to option A.…”

Section: Feature Complementarity In Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

Feature Complementarity and Assortment in Choice

Chernev¹

2005

J CONSUM RES

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This research argues that the purchase probability from a given choice set is contingent on the complementarity of the features differentiating its options. In particular, two types of features are distinguished: complementary features, which are characterized by the additivity of their utilities, and noncomplementary features, which are characterized by nonadditive utilities. In this context, it is argued that assortments in which options are differentiated by noncomplementary features are likely to be associated with a greater probability of purchase than assortments with options differentiated by complementary features. This prediction is supported by data from three experimental studies. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical implications and offers directions for further research.

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“…If words are GTs that represent relations efficiently, then regardless of the semantics of the relational labels, they should provide a benefit. Especially when working together with comparison (Doumas et al, 2008;Markman & Gentner, 1993) to drive the discovery of relational similarity, the presence of GTs that can represent these extracted relations may be beneficial. More alignable (relationally comparable) SDT stories will benefit from GTs more than less alignable SDT stories.…”

Section: Rationale Of Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Relational thinking plays a central role in human cognition. It underlies our ability to perceive and understand the spatial relations among an object's parts (Hummel, 2000;Hummel & Biederman, 1992;Hummel & Stankewicz, 1996), comprehend arrangements of objects in scenes (Green & Hummel, 2006;Markman & Gentner, 1993;Richland, Morrison, & Holyoak, 2006), and comprehend abstract analogies between otherwise very different situations or systems of knowledge (e.g., between the structure of the solar system and the structure of the atom; Gentner, 1983;Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1983Holyoak & Thagard, 1995). However, despite its centrality in human cognition, relational thinking is cognitively demanding.…”

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confidence: 99%

When Do Words Promote Analogical Transfer?

Son¹,

Doumas²,

Goldstone³

2010

The Journal of Problem Solving

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Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to explore how and when verbal labels facilitate relational reasoning and transfer. We review the research and theory behind two ways words might direct attention to relational information: (1) words generically invite people to compare and thus highlight relations (the Generic Tokens [GT] hypothesis), and/or (2) words carry semantic cues to common structure (the Cues to Specific Meaning [CSM] hypothesis). Four experiments examined whether learning Signal Detection Theory (SDT) with relational words fostered better transfer than learning without relational words in easily alignable and less alignable situations (testing the GT hypothesis) as well as when the relational words matched and mismatched the semantics of the learning situation (testing the CSM hypothesis). The results of the experiments found support for the GT hypothesis because the presence of relational labels produced better transfer when two situations were alignable. Although the CSM hypothesis does not explain how words facilitate transfer, we found that mismatches between words and their labeled referents can produce a situation where words hinder relational learning.

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Splitting the Differences: A Structural Alignment View of Similarity

Cited by 266 publications

References 39 publications

Detecting anomalous features in complex stimuli: The role of structured comparison.

Detecting anomalous features in complex stimuli: The role of structured comparison.

Feature Complementarity and Assortment in Choice

When Do Words Promote Analogical Transfer?

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