The DOI matches its Crossref record; 11 of the 12 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 20 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.
Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy
Open accessAbstract
A theory of analogy must describe how the meaning of an analogy is derived from the meanings of its parts. In the structure-mapping theory, the interpretation rules are characterized as implicit rules for mapping knowledge about a base domain into a target domain. Two important features of the theory are (a) the rules depend only on syntactic properties of the knowledge representation, and not on the specific content of the domains; and (b) the theoretical framework allows analogies to be distinguished cleanly from literal similarity statements, applications of abstractions, and other kinds of comparisons. Two mapping principles are described: (a) Relations between objects, rather than attributes of objects, are mapped from base to target; and (b) The particular relations mapped are determined by systematicity, as defined by the existence of higher-order relations.
Overview
AI snapshot
Written from the paper’s full text.
TL;DR
This paper presents structure-mapping as a framework for how analogies are interpreted, arguing that analogical mapping transfers relations between objects rather than object attributes, and that relations belonging to interconnected higher-order systems are preferred. It distinguishes analogy from literal similarity, abstraction, and mere appearance matches, and cites prior empirical work as support.
Key findings
- Analogy maps relational predicates from base to target while discarding object attributes; for example, the atom/solar-system analogy maps relations such as revolving around, attraction, and relative mass, but not attributes such as color or temperature.
- The systematicity principle holds that a predicate is more likely to be mapped if it belongs to a mutually interconnected system of relations, especially higher-order causal or constraint structures; this explains why a relation like “more massive than” is preserved while a formally similar relation like “hotter than” is not.
- The framework separates comparison types by predicate overlap: literal similarity maps many attributes and many relations; analogy maps few attributes and many relations; abstraction maps few attributes and many relations with abstract base objects; mere appearance maps attributes but not relations; anomaly maps neither.
- Empirical support is cited from prior studies: subjects’ interpretations of analogical comparisons were predominantly relational, and aptness ratings correlated with the amount of relational information produced; no numeric values are reported in this paper.
Methods
- Theoretical paper: knowledge is represented as propositional networks with syntactic predicate types—attributes take one argument, relations take two or more, and predicates can be first-order or higher-order.
- Worked examples (Rutherford atom/solar system, heat/water, arithmetic analogy) are used to derive mapping rules and a taxonomy of domain comparisons.
- Empirical support is summarized from prior studies in which subjects wrote interpretations of analogical comparisons and naive judges rated assertions as attribute-based or relation-based; developmental and science-learning studies are also cited.
Limitations
- The paper states a simplifying assumption that the hearer begins with object correspondences and then maps relations; it notes that actual processing order is variable and that object correspondences may be settled only before relational mapping is finished.
- The paper assumes predicates are carried across as identical matches and notes that treating predicates as merely similar risks an infinite regress.
- Evident from the text: empirical support is brief and relies on cited studies rather than new experiments or statistics; the paper is primarily theoretical and does not report detailed sample sizes or quantitative results.
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Claims the paper makes
62 Own interpretation · 13 Not checked yet · 2 Own result · 1 No basis given
In the paper
“Further, a correlation of aptness ratings and relationality ratings revealed that subjects rated as most apt those analogies for which they wrote the greatest amount of relational information.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Gentner, 1980b
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Such a “degree of overlap” approach seems reasonably correct for literal similarity comparisons.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Tversky (1977)
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“One symptom of this systematicity is that changing one of these relations affects the others.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“We could accomplish this by postulating that analogies select for dynamic causal knowledge, or more generally, for appropriate abstractions.Either of these would be a mistake: The former course limits the scope of analogy unreasonably,”
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“There is research supporting the structure-mapping approach.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Moreover, if we assume the systematicity principle, then the set of overlapping predicates is likely to include higher-order relations such as CAUSE and IMPLIES.”
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In the paper
“By the systematicity principle, to the extent that people recognize (however vaguely) that the system of predicates connected with central forces is the deepest, most interconnected mappable system for this analogy, they will favor relations that belong to that system in their interpretations.”
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- The authors state this as an assumption: Partial knowledge of a system is often sufficient for a person to gauge its interconnectedness.
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In the paper
“Further, the rules are such as to distinguish analogy from other kinds of domain comparisons, such as abstraction or literal similarity.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The same interdependencies hold for the atom, if we make the appropriate node substitutions:”
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In the paper
“These object correspondences are used to generate the candidate set of inferences in the target domain.”
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In the paper
“This sequence can be understood in terms of the kinds of differences in predicate overlap discussed in this paper.”
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In the paper
“According to this analysis, the contrast between analogy and literal similarity is a continuum, not a dichotomy.”
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In the paper
“Notice that this discussion has been purely structural; the distinctions invoked rely only on the syntax of the knowledge representation, not on the content.”
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In the paper
“Moreover, metaphors can be mixtures of all of these.”
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In the paper
“The structure-mapping theory satisfies the first requirement of a theory of analogy, that it describe the rules by which the interpretation of an analogy is derived from the meanings of its parts.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“In the structure-mapping framework, we can suggest reasons that the accessibility and the explanatory usefulness of a match may be negatively related.”
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In the paper
“Literal similarity matches are highly accessible, since they can be indexed by object descriptions, by relational structures, or by both.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Given that two domains overlap in relationships, they are more literally similar to the extent that their object-attributes also overlap.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“However, as mentioned earlier, not all relations are equally likely to be preserved.”
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In the paper
“That is, the processing mechanism that selects the initial candidate set of predicates to map attends only to the structure of the knowledge representations for the two analogs, and not to the content.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Thus, by promoting deeply nested relational chains, the systematicity principle operates to promote predicates that participate in causal chains and in other constraint relations.”
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In the paper
“This requirement is somewhat more restrictive than the structure-mapping principle that participation in any higher-order chain results in preferential mapping.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Winston (1980Winston ( , 1981))
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“However, although the degree-ofoverlap model appears to work well for literal similarity comparisons, it does not provide a good account of analogy.”
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In the paper
“However, once found, an analogy should be more useful in deriving the key principles, since the shared data structure is sparse enough to permit analysis.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The actual order of processing is clearly variable.”
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In the paper
“This is largely because in a complex analogy, the number of mappable relations is largely compared to the number of object correspondences;”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“If the object assignment is left unspecified, the hearer can use knowledge about matching relations to decide on the object correspondences.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“In the main, these accounts are compatible with that given by the structure-mapping theory in each of the problem domains.”
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“In a literal similarity comparison, all or most of the predicates shown would be mapped.”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Finally, for metaphors that are analyzable as analogies or combinations of analogies, the mapping rules tend to be less regular than those for analogy (Gentner, 1982).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Gentner, 1982
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Therefore, it is more accurate to replace the statement that the object correspondences are decided before the relational mappings begin with the weaker statement that the object correspondences are decided before the relational mappings arefinished.”
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In the paper
“A theory based on the mere relative numbers of shared and non-shared predicates cannot provide an adequate account of analogy, nor, therefore, a sufficient basis for a general account of relatedness.”
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In the paper
“The central claims of the theory are that analogy is characterized by the mapping of relations between objects, rather than attributes of objects, from base to target;”
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In the paper
“Relations have priority over object-attributes in analogy.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“To reflect this tacit preference for coherence in analogy, I propose the systematicity principle: A predicate that belongs to a mappable system of mutually interconnecting relationships is more likely to be imported into the target than is an isolated predicate.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Higher-order relations play an important role in analogy, as is discussed below.”
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In the paper
“If higher-order relations are present in the base, they can be mapped as well:”
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In the paper
“Relations tend to be preserved across domains with dissimilar object-attributes: e.g., the matching of like procedures that apply to unlike sets of objects (VanLehn & Brown, 1980).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites VanLehn & Brown, 1980
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Finally, a third feature of the structure-mapping theory is that the interpretation rules are characterizable purely syntactically.”
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In the paper
“and, further, that the particular relations mapped are those that are dominated by higher-order relations that belong to the mapping (the sysfemariciry claim).”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“It is a purely syntactic mechanism that guarantees that the set of candidate mappings will be as interesting-in the sense that a mutually interconnected system of predicates is interesting-as the knowledge base allows.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“However, it has the similar effect of focusing the matcher on systematic relational structures rather than on haphazard resemblances between situation.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Winston (1980Winston ( , 1981))
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In the structure-mapping framework, the interpretation rules for analogy can be distinguished from those for other kinds of domain comparisons.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“To state a general law requires another step beyond creating a temporary correspondence betweeen unlike domains: The person must create a new relational structure whose objects are so lacking in specific attributes that the structure can be applied across widely different domains.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Forbus & Gentner, 1983
- Not checked yetcites Gick & Holyoak, 1980
- Not checked yetcites Gick & Holyoak, 1983
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Many (perhaps most) metaphors are predominantly relational comparisons, and are thus essentially analogies.”
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Other experimental evidence for structure-mapping as part of the psychological process of interpreting complex analogies has included developmental studies (Gentner, 1977a,b;1980b) and studies of how people use analogies in learning science (Collins & Gentner, in preparation;Gentner, 1980aGentner, , 1981;;Gentner & Gentner, 1983).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Gentner, 1977a,b;1980b
- Not checked yetcites Collins & Gentner, in preparation
- Not checked yetcites Gentner & Gentner, 1983
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The syntactic type of the shared versus nonshared predicates determines whether a given comparison is thought of as analogy, as literal similarity, or as the application of an abstraction.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“But they are not very useful in deriving causal principles, precisely because there is too much overlap to know what is crucial.”
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- Probably not a substantial claim. 21
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In the paper
“An informal observation is that the earliest comparisons are chiefly literalsimilarity matches, followed by analogies, followed by general laws.”
hedgedcorrelationalSingle case- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“His first comparisons were similarity matches, e.g., water coming through a constricted hose.Later, he produced analogies such as a train speeding up or slowing down, and balls banging into the walls and transferring momentum.Finally, he arrived at a general statement of the Bernoulli principle, that velocity increases and pressure decreases in a constriction.”
plaincorrelationalSingle case- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“The results indicated a strong focus on relational information in interpreting analogies.Relational information predominates over attributional information in analogy interpretations, but not in object descriptions generated by the same sub-”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Gentner, 1980b
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It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The systematicity principle offers a way to satisfy both requirements.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Part of our understanding about analogy is that it conveys a system of connected knowledge, not a mere assortment of independent facts.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Intuitively, the second scenario is more interesting than the first: (1) conveys merely a static spatial description, while (2) conveys a dynamic causal description.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“2. Try to preserve relations between objects: Nbi, WI --> ML, t,),”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“3. (The Systematicity Principle) To decide which relations are preserved, choose systems of relations:”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“These kinds of representations can deal well with object attributes, but are extremely limited in their ability to express relations between objects, and especially higher-order relations.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Ortony, 1979
- Not checked yetcites Rumelhart & Abrahamson, 1973
- Not checked yetcites Tourangeau & Sternberg, 1981
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“These equations embody higher-order relations that connect the lowerorder relations (1) through (4) into a mutually constraining structure.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This is why MORE MASSIVE THAN is preserved while HOTTER THAN is not: Only MORE MASSIVE THAN participates in the central-force system of predicates.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Predicates from B are carried across6 to T, using the node substitutions dictated by the”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Potential analogies are less likely to be noticed, since they require accessing the data base via relational matches; object matches are of no use.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The central idea is that an analogy is an assertion that a relational structure that normally applies in one domain can be applied in another domain.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The strucfure-mapping theory describes the implicit interpretation rules of analogy.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The strength of an analogical match does not seem to depend on the overall degree of featural overlap; not all features are equally relevant to the interpretation.Only certain kinds of mismatches count for or against analogies.”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“(2) An analogy is a comparison in which relational predicates, but few or no object attributes, can be mapped from base to target.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“(1) A literul similurity statement is a comparison in which a large number of predicates is mapped from base to target, relative to the number of nonmapped predicates (e.g., Tversky, 1977).The mapped predicates include both object-attributes and relational predicates.”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Tversky, 1977
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“These rules have the desirable property that they depend only on syntactic properties of the knowledge representation, and not on the specific content of the domain.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Dynamic causal information [e.g., (2)] will usually be represented in a more deeply embedded structure than simple stative information [e.g., (l)].”
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Such a system can be represented by an interconnected predicate structure in which higher-order predicates enforce connections among lower-order predicates.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In the structuremapping theory, a simple but powerful distinction is made among predicate types that allows us to state which ones will be mapped.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
The quote only partly states this claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“1.Discard attributes of objects: A(b,)I -•t -> LWJ”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Wbstraction differs from analogy and the other comparisons i n having few abject-attributes i n the bose domain as well as few object-attributes i n the target domain.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Further, this theoretical framework allows us to state the differences between analogies and literal similarity statements, abstractions and other kinds of comparisons.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“and the latter course is both vague, in that “appropriateness” is difficult to define explicitly, and incorrect, in that analogies can also convey inappro-e”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: unclear — It is unclear whether it could be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Most explanatory analogies are l-1 mappings, in which m = n.However, there are exceptions (Gentner, 1982).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Gentner, 1982
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“indeed the number of mappable relations may have no clear upper bound.”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The analogy maps the object nodes of B onto the object nodes of T: M: bi --> t,”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Many such metaphors involve conventional vehicles, such as “giraffe” above, or conventional dimensional matches, such as “a deep/shallow idea”.[Glucksberg, Gildea, & Bookin, 1982;Lakoff & Johnson, 19801).”
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Glucksberg, Gildea, & Bookin, 1982
- Not checked yetcites Lakoff & Johnson, 19801
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
The authors state this as an assumption.
Predicates are carried across as identical matches, and similarity can be restated as identity among some number of component predicates.
“The assumption that predicates are brought across as idenficul matches is crucial to the clarity of this discussion.”
“I will assume instead that similarity can be restated as identity among some number of component predicates.”
The authors state this as an assumption.
Partial knowledge of a system is often sufficient for a person to gauge its interconnectedness.
“I make the assumption here that partial knowledge of the system is often sufficient to allow a person to gauge its interconnectedness.”
The authors state this as an assumption.
In comprehending an analogy, the hearer begins with object correspondences and then maps relations across.
“Yn this discussion I have made the simplifying assumption that, in comprehension of analogy, the hearer starts with the object correspondences and then maps across the relations.”
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Higher-level forms of relational reasoning, such as analogy and inference, involve mapping correspondences and creating higher-order relations between schemas (i.e., relations between relations; Gentner, 1983;Holyoak, 2012).”
From Mental Time Travel? A Neurocognitive Model of Event Simulation. (2020) · cites this paper as Gentner, 1983
Citations
Cites
Schema induction and analogical transfer
Gick, M. L., & Holyoak, K. J. (1983) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(83)90002-6 · Cited by 3,010 · cited 1×
“Gick and Holyoak have also emphasized the relationship between analogical matching and the formation of general schemas in an interesting series of studies of transfer in problem-solving (Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1983; Holyoak, in press).”
BackgroundGick, M. L., & Holyoak, K. J. (1980) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(80)90013-4 · Cited by 2,552 · cited 4×
“Gick and Holyoak have also emphasized the relationship between analogical matching and the formation of general schemas in an interesting series of studies of transfer in problemsolving (Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1983; Holyoak, in press). Other researchers have explored specific instances of relational mapping. VanLehn an…”
BackgroundInfluentialModels and Analogies in Science
Ardley, G. (1965) · Philosophical Studies · doi:10.5840/philstudies19651438 · Cited by 1,770
Flowing Waters or Teeming Crowds: Mental Models of Electricity
Dedre Gentner, C., & Gentner, D. R. (2014) · Psychology Press eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315802725-10 · Cited by 699
Self-citationOrtony, A. (1979) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.86.3.161 · Cited by 687
On understanding nonliteral speech: Can people ignore metaphors?
Glucksberg, S., Gildea, P. M., & Bookin, H. B. (1982) · Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(82)90467-4 · Cited by 426
A model for analogical reasoning
Rumelhart, D. E., & Abrahamson, A. A. (1973) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/0010-0285(73)90023-6 · Cited by 260
Are Scientific Analogies Metaphors
Gentner, D. (1981) · Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) · Cited by 248
Self-citationImages and models, similes and metaphors
Miller, G. A. (1993) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139173865.019 · Cited by 238
Moore, J. J. A., & Newell, A. (2018) · Figshare · doi:10.1184/r1/6606152 · Cited by 117
Research works printed but not linked: 7
- Rumelhart, D. E., &Norman. D. A. Analogical processes in learning. In J. R. Anderson (Ed.), Cognirive skills and fheir acquisifion. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981.
- Schustack, M. W.. & Anderson. J. R. Effects of analogy to prior knowledge on memory for new information. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1979, 18, 565-583.
- Steels. L. An applicaiive view of object oriented programming (MIT A.I. Memo No. 15). Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, March 1982.
- Stevens, A., Collins, A., & Goldin, S. E. Misconceptions in student's understanding. Journal o/Man-Machine Sfudies. 1979, II. 145-156.
- Tourangeau, R., & Sternberg, R. J. Aptness in metaphor. Cogniriue Psychology, 1981, 13, 27-55.
- Tversky, A. Features of similarity. Psychological Review, 1977, 84, 327-352.
- Winston, P. H. Learning and reasoning by analogy. CACM, 1980. 23, No. 12. Winston, P. H. Learning new principles from precedenrs and exercises. (MIT Artificial Intelli- gence Memo No. 632). Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 1981.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Barsalou, L. W. (1999) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x99002149 · Cited by 6,887
Case-Based Reasoning: Foundational Issues, Methodological Variations, and System Approaches
Aamodt, A., & Plaza, E. (1994) · AI Communications · doi:10.3233/aic-1994-7104 · Cited by 5,624
Croft, W., & Cruse, D. A. (2004) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511803864 · Cited by 3,316
DiMaggio, P. (1997) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.23.1.263 · Cited by 3,161
From Frequency to Meaning: Vector Space Models of Semantics
Turney, P. D., & Pantel, P. (2010) · Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research · doi:10.1613/jair.2934 · Cited by 2,949
Metadata
- Authors
- GENTNER, D.
- Corresponding author
- GENTNER, D
- ORCID
- GENTNER, D
- Venue
- Cognitive Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1983-06
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 155-170
- ISSN
- 0364-0213 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4229954498
- Cited by
- 816
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 60 · 2025: 55 · 2024: 69 · 2023: 63 · 2022: 50 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 45 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 5.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cognitive Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Categorization, perception, and language
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI-based Problem Solving and Planning
- Keywords
- structure-mapping theory, analogy, analogical reasoning, mapping rules, knowledge representation, systematicity, higher-order relations, abstraction
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-07, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).
A second model labelled each claim on 2026-10-07 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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