We present a model of similarity-based retrieval which attempts to capture three psychological phenomena: (1) people are extremely good at judging similarity and analogy when given items to compare. (2) Superficial remindings are much more frequent than structural remindings. (3) People sometimes experience and use purely structural analogical remindings. Our model, called MAC/FAC (for "many are called but few are chosen") consists of two stages. The first stage (MAC) uses a computationally cheap, non-structural matcher to filter candidates from a pool of memory items. That is, we redundantly encode structured representations as content vectors, whose dot product yields an estimate of how well the corresponding structural representations will match. The second stage (FAC) uses SME to compute a true structural match between the probe and output from the first stage. MAC/FAC has been fully implemented, and we show that it is capable of modeling patterns of access found in psychological ...

A theory of analogical mapping between source and target analogs based upon Interacting structural, semantic, and pragmatic constraints is proposed here. The structural constraint of isomorphism encourages mappings that maximize the consistency of relational corresondences between the elements of the two analogs. The constraint of semantic similarity supports mapping hypotheses to the degree that mapped predicates have similar meanings. The constraint of prog-mafic central/! / favors mappings involving elements the analogist believes to be Important in order to achieve the purpose for which the analogy Is being used. The theory is implemented in a computer program called ACME (Analogical Constraint Mapping Engine), which represents constraints by means of a network of supporting and competing hypotheses regarding what elements to map. A coop-erative algorithm for parallel constraint satisfaction identifies mapping hypotheses that collectively represent the overall mapping that best fits the interacting constraints. ACME has been applied to a wide range of examples that include problem analogies, analogical arguments, explanatory analogies, story analogies, formal analogies, and metaphors. ACME is sensitive to semantic and pragmatic Information if it Is available,.and yet able to compute mappings between formally Isomorphic analogs without any similar or identical elements. The theory Is able to account for empirical findings regarding the impact of consistency and similarity on human processing of analogies.

This article describes an integrated theory of analogical access and mapping, instantiated in a

Distinctions have been proposed between systems of reasoning for centuries. This article distills properties shared by many of these distinctions and characterizes the resulting systems in light of recent findings and theoretical developments. One system is associative because its computations reflect similarity structure and relations of temporal contiguity. The other is "rule based " because it operates on symbolic structures that have logical content and variables and because its computations have the properties that are normally assigned to rules. The systems serve complementary functions and can simultaneously generate different solutions to a reasoning problem. The rule-based system can suppress the associative system but not completely inhibit it. The article reviews evidence in favor of the distinction and its characterization. One of the oldest conundrums in psychology is whether people are best conceived as parallel processors of information who operate along diffuse associative links or as analysts who operate by deliberate and sequential manipulation of internal representations. Are inferences drawn through a network of learned associative pathways or through application of a kind of "psychologic"

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Analogy and similarity are often assumed to be distinct psychological processes. In contrast to this position, the authors suggest that both similarity and analogy involve a process of structural alignment and mapping, that is, that similarity is like analogy. In this article, the authors first describe the structure-mapping process as it has been worked out for analogy. Then, this view is extended to similarity, where it is used to generate new predictions. Finally, the authors explore broader implications of structural alignment for psychological processing.

We describe a computational model of how analogs are retrieved from memory using simultaneous satisfaction of a set of semantic, structural, and pragmatic constraints. The model is based on psychological evidence suggesting that human memory retrieval tends to favor analogs that have several kinds of correspondences with the structure that prompts retrieval: semantic similarity, isomorphism, and pragmatic relevance. We describe ARCS, a program that demonstrates how these constraints can be used to select relevant analogs by forming a network of hypotheses and attempting to satisfy the constraints simultaneously. ARCS has been tested on several data bases that display both its psychological plausibility and computational power.

Work in philosophy and psychology has argued for a dissociation between perceptuallybased similarity and higher-level rules in conceptual thought. Although such a dissociation may be justified at times, our goal is to illustrate ways in which conceptual processing is grounded in perception, both for perceptual similarity and abstract rules. We discuss the advantages, power and influences of perceptually-based representations. First, many of the properties associated with amodal symbol systems can be achieved with perceptually-based systems as well (e.g. productivity). Second, relatively raw perceptual representations are powerful because they can implicitly represent properties in an analog fashion. Third, perception naturally provides impressions of overall similarity, exactly the type of similarity useful for establishing many common categories. Fourth, perceptual similarity is not static but becomes tuned over time to conceptual demands. Fifth, the original motivation or basis for sophisticated cognition is often less sophisticated perceptual similarity. Sixth, perceptual simulation occurs even in conceptual tasks that have no explicit perceptual demands. Parallels between perceptual and conceptual processes suggest that many mechanisms typically associated

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This article presents a theory that inte~ates space-based and object-based approaches to visual attention. The theory puts together M. P. van Oeffelen and P. G. Vos's ( 1982, 1983) COntour DEtector (CODE) theory of perceptual grouping by proximity with C. Bundesen's (1990) theory of visual attention (TVA). CODE provides input to TVA, accounting for spatially based between-object selection, and TVA converts the input to output, accounting for feature- and category-based withinobject selection. CODE clusters nearby items into perceptual groups that are both perceptual objects and regions of space, thereby integrating object-based and space-based approaches to attention. The combined theory provides a quantitative account of the effects of grouping by proximity and dis~nce between items on reaction time and accuracy data in 7 empirical situations that shaped the current literature on visual spatial attention. For the last decade the attention literature has been embroiled in a debate over the nature of visual spatial attention that focuses on the "thing " that attention selects (e.g., Baylis &