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Learning and reasoning by analogy
Abstract
We use analogy when we say something is a Cinderella story and when we learn about resistors by thinking about water pipes. We also use analogy when we learn subjects like economics, medicine, and law. This paper presents a theory of analogy and describes an implemented system that embodies the theory. The specific competence to be understood is that of using analogies to do certain kinds of learning and reasoning. Learning takes place when analogy is used to generate a constraint description in one domain, given a constraint description in another, as when we learn Ohm's law by way of knowledge about water pipes. Reasoning takes place when analogy is used to answer questions about one situation, given another situation that is supposed to be a precedent, as when we answer questions about Hamlet by way of knowledge about Macbeth .
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“Second, in-context learning is similar to the decision process of human beings by learning from analogy (Winston, 1980).”
From A Survey on In-context Learning (2024) · cites this paper as Winston, 1980
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Cited by
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
Similarity and Analogical Reasoning
(1989) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511529863 · Cited by 2,381
Hertzmann, A., Jacobs, C. E., Oliver, N., Curless, B., & Salesin, D. H. (2001) · Proceedings of the 28th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques · doi:10.1145/383259.383295 · Cited by 1,518
The structure-mapping engine: Algorithm and examples
Falkenhainer, B., Forbus, K. D., & Gentner, D. (1989) · Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1016/0004-3702(89)90077-5 · Cited by 1,454
The Rise and Potential of Large Language Model Based Agents: A Survey
Xi, Z., Chen, W., Guo, X., He, W., Ding, Y., Hong, B., Zhang, M., Wang, J., Jin, S., Zhou, E., et al. (2023) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2309.07864 · Cited by 972
Metadata
- Authors
- Winston, P. H.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
- Venue
- Communications of the ACM
- Published
- 1980-12
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 689-703
- ISSN
- 0001-0782
- 1557-7317
- Cited by
- 301
- References
- 1
- Language
- en
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