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Reviving Inert Knowledge: Analogical Abstraction Supports Relational Retrieval of Past Events
Author(s) -
Gentner Dedre,
Loewenstein Jeffrey,
Thompson Leigh,
Forbus Kenneth D.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01070.x
Subject(s) - abstraction , schema (genetic algorithms) , computer science , recall , cognitive psychology , cognitive science , artificial intelligence , theoretical computer science , information retrieval , psychology , philosophy , epistemology
Abstract We present five experiments and simulation studies to establish late analogical abstraction as a new psychological phenomenon: Schema abstraction from analogical examples can revive otherwise inert knowledge. We find that comparing two analogous examples of negotiations at recall time promotes retrieving analogical matches stored in memory—a notoriously elusive effect. Another innovation in this research is that we show parallel effects for real‐life autobiographical memory (Experiments 1–3) and for a controlled memory set (Experiments 4 and 5). Simulation studies show that a unified model based on schema abstraction can capture backward (retrieval) effects as well as forward (transfer) effects.