Category Membership As A Criterion To Evaluate The Soundness of Analogical Inferences

Category Membership as a Criterion to
Evaluate the Soundness of Analogical Inferences
Ricardo A. Minervino1,2*, Adrián Margni1, Lucía Micaela Tavernini1,2

and Máximo Trench1,2
1
University of Comahue,
2
National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET)
Abstract
The standard approach to analogical reasoning posits that the
mechanism that people employ to ensure the soundness of
analogical inferences consists in copying unmapped individual
explicit base relations, substituting corresponding source entities
with target entities, and generating slots for base entities that
were unmapped. Alternatively, we contend that when the gist of
the information to be transferred is better captured by relational
categories than by explicit individual relations, people resort to
searching for target exemplars of the base relational categories,
disregarding similarity between relations. Experiment 1 revealed
that for this kind of analogy, inferences that did not resemble
the base analog in terms of explicit individual relations but were
built on exemplars of the base relational category were judged
as sounder than inferences that matched the base analog in terms
of relations but not in terms of a common category. Within the
framework of the proposed approach, we postulated that inference
evaluation also depends on the similarity between the base and
target exemplars on relevant aspects. Experiment 2 revealed that
inferences were judged as sounder when the exemplars upon
which the inferences were built matched the base exemplars
along salient dimensions of the relational category they shared.
Received 04 October 2023; Revised 28 December 2023; Accepted 29 December 2023

* Correspondence: minervinora@gmail.com
Journal of Cognitive Science 24(4): 401-436 December 2023
©2023 Institute for Cognitive Science, Seoul National University
402 Ricardo A. Minervino, Adrián Margni, Lucía Micaela Tavernini and Máximo Trench
The cognitive mechanisms unveiled by the current results suggest

new avenues along which current theorization and modeling of
analogical inference may develop.
Key words: analogy, inference, relational categories, evaluation,

similarity
1. Introduction
Drawing an analogy involves retrieving a known situation (base analog)

from long-term memory in response to the processing of a less familiar
situation (target analog), establishing a mapping between elements
playing corresponding roles in their respective situations, and projecting
inferences from the base to the target (Gentner, 1989; Holyoak, 1984).
While the retrieval and mapping subprocesses have been profusely studied,
the formulation, evaluation and adaptation of analogical inferences have
received comparatively less attention (Gentner & Smith, 2013; Holyoak,
2012).
Advancing our knowledge about the criteria that people follow to
grant soundness to analogical inferences is of great importance, given the
central role of analogy in activities as diverse as problem solving, scientific
hypothesis generation, argumentation and prediction (Gentner et al., 2001).
The present study is interested in discussing the general adequacy of the
mechanism proposed by dominant theories of analogical thinking as a
means for favoring sound over senseless analogical inferences. We will
argue that while the traditional mechanism is able to achieve this objective
for analogies in which the critical information to be transferred is well-
captured by individual explicit relations, it cannot accomplish this goal
when the critical information to be projected is better captured by a certain
type of relational categories. After proposing an alternative mechanism for
this particular kind of analogies, we present the results of two experiments
Category Membership as a Criterion to Evaluate the Soundness of Analogical Inferences 403
designed to gather evidence for the proposed mechanism.
1.1 The Standard Approach to Analogical Inference: Copy with

Substitution and Generation
Dominant theories of analogical thinking postulate that establishing an
analogy consists in detecting a system of relations shared by two situations
(Gentner, 1983, 1989; Gentner & Smith, 2013; Holyoak, 1984, 2012;
Holyoak & Thagard, 1989). Our cognitive apparatus is capable of detecting
such systems based on the formal properties of propositions, the amodal
building blocks on which our cognitive system operates. Each proposition
comprises a predicate and one or more entities, which constitute their
arguments. Let’s suppose that our cognitive system receives the following
two situations in which someone has a gesture of generosity with a person
who desired something that she owned:
Base analog
ADMIRE (George, car, Peter)
LEND (Peter, car, George)
CAUSE [ADMIRE (George, car, Peter), LEND (Peter, car, George)]
TALL (George)
LIVE (George, Buenos Aires)
Target analog
ADMIRE (Bruno, shoes, Marcos)
LEND (Marcos, shoes, Bruno)
CAUSE [ADMIRE (Bruno, shoes, Marcos), LEND (Marcos, shoes, Bruno)]
TALL (Bruno)
LIVE (Bruno, New York)
In the first place, our system is capable of differentiating between

attributes and relations. While predicates that take only one argument
are recognized as attributes [e.g., TALL (Bruno)], multiplace predicates
that link entities [ADMIRE (George, car, Peter)] are identified as first-
order relations. The cognitive system is not only capable of registering the
number of arguments that a predicate includes, but also the role that each
argument fulfills, something that is defined by the position it occupies in the
series of arguments.
From the onset of an analogical comparison, the apparatus leaves
attributes aside. As the above example illustrates, it is clear that the height
of the agents is not of interest for the analogy. The analogical machinery
looks for similar and formally equivalent relations and generates matches
between them. Afterwards, it proceeds by matching groups of first-order
relations that are linked in the same way by similar second-order relations
(Gentner, 1989; Holyoak & Thagard, 1989). In this very simple example, the
system would interpret that the situations are analogous since they share the
system ADMIRE CAUSES LENDING. After identifying those systems, the
apparatus discards isolated pairs of first-order relations that do not take part
in them. In this example, the cities of the persons exerting the admiration
are irrelevant for the comparison, since they are not causally related to
LEND. This preference for the biggest system of relations during mapping
is known as the systematicity principle (Gentner, 1983, 1989).
Almost all current theories of analogy agree that the alignment that takes
place during analogical comparisons should tend to satisfy the constraints
of one-to-one mapping and parallel connectivity (e.g., Gentner, 1989,
Holyoak & Thagard, 1989; Hummel & Holyoak, 1997; Keane et al., 1994).
One-to-one mapping requires that each element in one situation maps to
at most one element in the other situation. Parallel connectivity entails
that if two predicates are paired, their arguments must also be placed in
correspondence, according to the roles they play within the proposition to
which they belong. The pairings established during mapping will serve as
an input for the formulation of coherent inferences.
There is a broad consensus about the basic mechanism that people try to
follow to ensure the soundness of analogical inferences. This mechanism
involves constructing target equivalents for source propositions that did
not find counterparts in the target, but that are part of the base structure
that was partially matched with the target. To formulate these inferences,
the cognitive system applies some variant of a copy with substitution and
generation mechanism (CWSG; e.g., Falkenhainer et al., 1989; Hofstadter
& Mitchell, 1994; Holyoak et al., 1994; Hummel & Holyoak, 2003; Keane
et al., 1994; Kokinov, 1994), which consists of copying base relations (or
replacing them by similar ones), substituting base entities for target entities
as dictated by the mapping, and generating slots for unmapped base entities.
The level of soundness of an inference will depend on how large and deep
the shared system that supports it is, as well as on how similar the relations
matched during mapping are.
Suppose that the base analog now includes the information that in order
to reciprocate Peter’s generosity, George washed Peter’s car. In such a case,
the system would generate the template WASH [or a similar relation] (Bruno,
shoes, Marcos). The selection of the specific action to be postulated in the
target domain will depend on the specificities of the target. In this case,
since the target is about shoes, wash could be replaced by shine.
While in the previous example entity substitutions are entirely dictated
by the mapping process, in other occasions the analogizer must identify
which entities from the target domain are capable of instantiating the slots
that were generated out of entities that did not find correspondences during
mapping. Suppose that the base analog now includes the information
that the car wash was carried out employing a hose. Given that no
correspondence was established for hose during mapping, the template
generated by CWSG for this situation would be WASH [or a similar
relation] (Bruno, shoes, [something playing the role of a hose], Marcos).

The postulated relations would guide the search for new entities that could
fill the empty slots derived from unmapped entities: if shine replaces wash,
a slippage from hose to brush would be coherent.
Even though extant studies on inference generation have focused on
the influence of formal constraints such as one-to-one mapping and
systematicity (e.g., Clement & Gentner, 1991; Gentner, et al., 1993;
Krawczyk et al., 2005; Markman, 1997), they also provide indirect evidence
on the adequacy of CWSG’s treatment of semantics. As an example,
Clement and Gentner (1991, Experiment 2) presented participants with a
base situation wherein imaginary creatures called Tams consumed minerals
with their underbellies, becoming so specialized in specific rocks that they
could not function on a new rock. Upon being presented with a target
analog in which certain robots who gathered data with probes became
specialized to the particulars of the planet in which they lived, participants
inferred that those probes would not function on a new planet, an inference
that can be obtained by means of copying the base relation and replacing
mapped entities.1
Studies interested in other processes such as analogical mapping or
analogical retrieval have also provided indirect evidence about the adequacy
of the semantic assumptions embraced by CWSG. As an example, a long
tradition assessing the retrieval of the military problem in response to
1
Since the 1980s, Cognitive Science research has been interested in determining
to what concept of analogy people adhere, something that is evidenced, for
example, by the type of inferences people make when asked to suppose that a
current situation is analogous to a previous event. It is assumed that, faced with
the request to make an analogy, the cognitive system responds by shifting into an
analogical comparison mode. What we seek to establish is whether analogy making
of this kind focuses on properties of objects, relationships, relational categories,
etc. It is not an objective of the present project to establish the logical foundation
of this type of inferences or their validity. The purpose is to determine what people
understand by analogy and what operations they activate when they are asked to
make an analogy.
the tumor problem have operationalized analogical retrieval through the

spontaneous application of the convergence solution to the tumor problem:
just as the base army was divided into smaller groups which were made to
converge simultaneously onto the fortress, successful participants inferred
that the strong rays that were available could be divided into several weaker
rays, which could be made to converge onto the tumor from different
directions (see Trench & Minervino, 2017 for a review).
Studies interested in determining the relation between analogical
inference generation and knowledge change have also provided evidence
in favor of the adequacy of CWSG as a way to generate sound inferences.
For example, Blanchette and Dunbar (2002) asked participants to read a
text about the legalization of marijuana followed by a base analog stating
that lifting the prohibition of alcohol did not increase alcohol consumption
(base analog). Participants in the control condition read the same target text
without the description of the source analog at the end. On a subsequent
recognition test, participants in the analogy group often misidentified
analogical inferences (e.g., lifting the the prohibition of marijuana will not
increase marijuana consumption) as sentences actually presented in the
target text, showing how the inadvertent generation of inferences can alter
the representation of original version of the target. The point of interest here
is that CWSG can explain how these inferences were generated. The same
can be said about the results obtained by Perrot et al. (2005).
1.2 The Category Approach to Analogical Inference

We contend that when the semantics of explicit base relations are not very
informative, the templates generated by CWSG will lack the information
and guidelines that are needed to instantiate them, making it impossible to
avoid the generation of nonsensical inferences. Let’s illustrate our point by
the following example:
Base analog: John loves Mary and Mary likes roses. This made John send
roses to Mary.
Target analog: Peter loves Susan and Susan likes red peppers.
The mechanism of CWSG would yield the inference that Peter sent (or a
similar relation) red peppers to Susan. As the system inherits the roses-red
peppers matching, it is only able to make adjustments on send, looking for
similar relations that are appropriate for red peppers (e.g., Peter could take
the red peppers to Susan’s instead of sending them). Via this mechanism,
the system is incapable of instantiating the template in a way that results in
a sound inference. What differentiates these analogies from those discussed
in the previous section is that unmapped relations (e.g., send) do not capture
the nucleus of the information to be transferred from base to target. Rather,
this gist is captured by a more global schema (e.g., expression of love) that
gets activated in response to the combination of send with roses. Let us now
consider a case where the mapping does not provide the replacement entity,
and therefore the object role has to be filled in the target domain:
Base analog: John loves Mary. This made John send flowers to Mary.
Target analog: Peter loves Susan.
Again, the template SEND [or a similar relation] (Peter, [something

playing the role of flowers], Susan) does not constitute a sufficiently
informative basis upon which a sound inference could be built. Indeed, if
we decompose the meaning of send and explore the semantics of the object
role in that action, we could perhaps access the features that an entity must
have in order to be sent (e.g., having weight, being packable or having at
least some endurance). It seems clear that the object role of the generated
template cannot be sufficiently described without considering the global
meaning of the base fact from which the template was derived. The system
is not just dealing with a sending relation, but rather with a sending action
that constitutes a component of an expression of love. Thus, the system
must provide a subtler characterization of the object role that flowers were
filling in the base situation. While features such as those described can
capture the semantic content of the object role in a sending relation, in this
last example it would be necessary to invite other (or different) features,
such as surprising, romantic or original: while perfume or some mariachis
could be adequate fillers, a bottle of water will not.
If on the one hand CWSG seems too liberal (e.g., it is not capable of
imposing sufficient restrictions to the entities filling the role of object), on
other occasions it can be unnecessarily restrictive. Many combinations of
non-similar verbs and non-similar entities could result in manifestations
of love, such as spending quality time together, giving a back rub or
saying words of caring or appreciation. In principle, the system could
break free from the restrictions of repeating the base relation or replacing
it with a similar one, or of conforming to the formal structure of the base
proposition. Going back to our red peppers example, our creative mind
could take the pairing between flowers and red peppers and, taking into
account the facts that Susan likes red peppers and Peter wants to express
his love to Susan, it could postulate that Peter might prepare a surprise meal
for Susan employing red peppers. In this expression of love, neither send
nor a similar relation are involved (the action of preparing is used instead),
flowers are replaced by meal (leaving aside the pairing flowers-peppers) and
red peppers become a complement of prepare, a role that was not present
in the original unmapped fact. What really matters is that the inference
constitutes an instance of expression of love.
The concept of expression of love constitutes an example of a type of
relational category known as schema-governed categories (SGC). A SGC
describes the semantic structure of a type of event, in terms of a network
that links the typical components of those events (Gentner & Kurtz, 2005;
Goldwater et al., 2011; Markman & Stilwell, 2001). Instead of sharing a set
of probabilistic features and feature correlations, members of SGCs (e.g.,
reparation, betrayal, assassination or help) share a structure that can be
instantiated by exemplars that can be very different in the relations and
entities that they include, and also in their formal structure.
Our proposal aligns with prior research exploring the influence of
semantic dependencies between entities and relations when assessing
analogical relatedness (e.g., Bassok & Medin, 1997). In their study on
factors determining similarity judgments, Bassok and Medin discovered
that explicit relations and entities in the base and target could be
overshadowed by abstract interpretations resulting from meaningful
combinations of relations and entities. For instance, a scenario where a
carpenter fixed a chair was considered more similar to an electrician fixing
a radio than to a carpenter fixing a radio. This judgment was based on the
abstract interpretation of “a professional performing a job-related activity”
in the first pair of facts. Bassok and Medin argued that similarity between
pairable elements no longer matters when relations and entities combine
to form more abstract meanings. Extending this idea, we can envision
that a target scenario where a carpenter installs a door frame might be
considered similar to a carpenter fixing a chair, despite the dissimilar verbs.
By examining sentence pairs that involved dissimilar verbs but the same
relational category, Minervino et al. (2008, 2013) demonstrated that events
can be seen seen as analogous despite lacking local-level similarity.
Transitioning from analogical relatedness to re-representation, evidence
suggests that this process operates both at the level of single explicit
relations and on a broader category scale. At a local scale, “John pushed the
box of books” might be deemed analogous to “Mary guided the wheelchair”
if push and guide are re-represented as instances of “causing directed
change to an object’s position” (Gentner & Kurtz, 2006; Silliman & Kurtz,
2019). Alternatively, propositions can undergo re-representation even when
analyzing their single explicit relations fails to unveil a hidden identity. For
instance, a dubious case of romantic courtship like “Sammy played a joke
on a girl in his class” could be categorized as an instance of such category
through analogical comparison with a more typical exemplar like “Sammy
bought a perfume for a girl in his class” (Oberholzer et al., 2018).
The primary aim of our research was to extend this perspective to
analogical inference, exploring whether, in analogies where crucial
information is better captured by SGCs than by explicit base relations,
people prefer the proposed category mechanism to ensure the soundness of
the generated inferences.
As t he mere use of one or the other mechanism cannot be
straightforwardly taken to prove that people regard it as the preferred
criterion, we thought that the best way to determine which mechanism
represents the favorite strategy for ensuring the soundness of analogical
inferences would consist in having participants choose between inferences
derived by CWSG and inferences produced by the category mechanism
here proposed (for the mechanisms actually employed by people when
generating analogical inferences see, Minervino et al., 2023).
As the kind of analogical inference in which the present paper
concentrates involves searching for new exemplars of the base SGCs in the
target domain, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the soundness of the
inferences will somewhat depend on the particular exemplar upon which
the inference was built. To maximize soundness, it is likely that people tend
to select new exemplars of the base SGC that resemble the base case in
many relevant aspects.
The values of exemplars along relevant dimensions of their overarching
SGC have proven relevant during other subprocesses of analogical thinking.
For example, Tavernini et al. (2017) presented participant with triplets of
images displaying a base situation plus two target situations. For example,
in the base of one of the sets a man was passing a computer mouse to a
woman. While in one of the targets a man was passing a laptop to a woman
(an object bearing taxonomic similarity with the mouse), in the other target
a man was passing a pair of socks to a woman (an object lacking taxonomic
similarity with the mouse). After being told that the situations were cases
of a particular relation (i.e., “These are three cases of passing”) or cases
of a SGC (i.e., “These are three cases of awarding”), participants had to
rate the analogical relatedness between the base and each of the targets.
Participants’ ratings revealed that general object similarities (membership
to same category) positively affected the evaluations of analogical quality,
but only when the compared situations were framed by their shared
relation. When framed by SGCs, other kinds of similarities between objects
seemed to count, determining opposite elections. More specifically, the
analogical relatedness was affected by the closeness of the exemplars in
critical dimensions of the SGC to which they belonged (in this example the
importance of awarding), something that, in this example, was determined
by the value of the entities that fulfilled the role of prize. In this way, under
the SGC condition, people judged the situation of the pair of socks to be
more analogous to the base than that of the laptop.
Category dimensions also seem to play a role during analogical retrieval.
Olguín et al. (2017) assessed whether the closeness of the analogs on their
dimensional value along the SGC to which they belong plays a role during
retrieval. Target situations consisted in “me too” analogies (see Hofstadter
& Sander, 2013) where a fictional character tells a story and the participant
is asked to report an analogous episode. While in half of the occasions
participants received instances of SGCs displaying high values along a
relevant dimension of these SGCs, in the other half they received instances
displaying low levels along relevant dimensions of these SGCs. Base
analogs recalled in response to target analogs with high dimensional values
scored higher along said dimension than those recalled in response to target
analogs showing low values, thus demonstrating an effect of dimensional
values on analogical retrieval.

The second experiment of the present study was aimed at establishing if
people grant more soundness to inferences that match the base exemplar
along relevant dimensions of the SGC to which they belong.
2. Experiment 1
The purpose of the first experiment was to determine if, for analogies
in which the critical information to be transferred lies at the level of a
relational category instead of explicit individual relations, the inferences
representing exemplars of the base SGC are judged as being sounder than
those that maintain similarities at the level of explicit individual relations
with the base information. Participants received base analogs comprising
a base cause and its effect, followed by a target analog that consisted in a
situation in which a very an action that was very similar to the base cause
was carried out by another individual or group. Participants were then
provided with two possible target effects, having to choose the one that
followed more reasonably from the analogy. One of such consequences
was an exemplar of the SGC to which the base effect belonged, but did
not involve an explicit individual relation that resembled its counterpart in
the base effect. Conversely, the other consequence was not an exemplar of
the relational category to which the base effect belonged, but its explicit
individual relation was similar to that of the base effect.
In order to assess whether an eventual preference of participants towards
one of the two competing alternatives was due to the analogical comparison
and not to its higher intrinsic plausibility as a consequence of the target
cause, participants’ choices were compared to those of a second group of
participants who were asked to choose the most reasonable consequence of
the target cause, but without having previously received any base analog.
2.1 Method
Participants
Fifty students at the University of Comahue (M = 22.42 years, SD = 2.46)
volunteered to participate in the experiment. After signing an informed
consent, they were randomly assigned in equal number to the analogy or
the target-only condition.
Materials
Ten sets of materials were employed, each one comprising a base analog
and a target cause that was similar to the base cause (see Table 1). Our
intention was to show that when the critical information to be transferred
does not reside in the explicit individual relation of the base effect, people
prefer analogical inferences that are created by selecting further exemplars
of the SGC to which the base effect belongs. Therefore, we intentionally
selected facts whose explicit individual relations were poorly informative,
but which clearly belonged to SGCs. For example, in the base situation “A
student questioned the theory to his professor, with the consequence that
the professor raised the student’s grade”, it would be extremely difficult to
guess what may have happened had the sentence ended with “raise” (had he
raised his hand? or his voice? or the quality of his arguments?). However,
this action becomes perfectly comprehensible as an instance of reward once
we know that the professor raised the student’s grade. While base analogs
comprised a cause and its effect, target analogs consisted of a further
situation in which the action referred to in the base cause was carried out by
another individual or group (e.g., “Another student questioned the theory
to his professor”). The target causes were coupled with two alternative
target effects which were formally equivalent to their corresponding base
effects. In the “similar relation” target effect, the explicit relations were
semantically similar to those of the base effect, but were chosen in such
a way that the base effect and the target effect could not be encompassed
by the same relational category. Following with the example in which the
base effect was “The professor raised the student’s grade” (i.e., a case of the
SGC reward), the similar relation target effect stated that “The professor
increased the suspension to the student”. Conversely, in the “same SGC”
target effect, the verbs were not semantically similar to those of the base
effect, but were chosen in such a way that the base and the target effects
could indeed be encompassed by the same SGC (e.g., “The professor
offered a scholarship to the student”, another exemplar of the SGC reward).
To prevent participants in the analogical condition from inducing an
association between the similarity of the base and target relations and the
absence of an encompassing relational category, ten filler sets were built.
Their structure was similar to that of the critical sets, except for the fact that
the alternative consequences for the target cause either maintained similar
relations as well as a shared relational category with the base effect, or did
not maintain any of these characteristics.
In order to gather an independent measure of the degree of similarity
between base and target verbs, we asked an independent group of 30
students taken from the same population to rate the similarity between
the verb of the base effects and the corresponding verbs of the two
alternative target effects, using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to
5 (1 = non similar, 2 = hardly similar, 3 = moderately similar, 4 = very
similar, 5 = extremely similar). The order of presentation of the pairs was
counterbalanced, and in all of the cases the pairs extracted from the same
set of materials were separated from each other by at least three interleaving
pairs taken from different sets. The verbs included in the effects with
similar relations were judged to be more similar to the base verbs than the
verbs included in the target effects sharing the SGC with the base, Mdn
= 4.3 (Range = 0.6) vs. Mdn = 1.5 (Range = 0.5), Z = -4.798, p < .001. To
determine the degree of representativeness of the base and target effects as
exemplars of the critical SGCs, another group of 30 students who belonged
to the same population received the base effect of each set of materials (e.g.,
“The teacher raised the student's grade”), preceded by the corresponding
base cause (for example, “The student questioned his teacher’s theory”) and
followed by the critical SGC applicable to the base effect (e.g., reward).
Participants also received each of the inferences included in the choice task
(e.g., “The teacher increased the student's suspension” and “The teacher
offered the student a scholarship”), both preceded by the same target
cause (e.g., “A student questioned his teacher's theory”) and followed by
the critical SGC applicable to the target effect of each set (e.g., reward).
Participants had to rate the extent to which the base and target effects
pertained to the SGCs presented using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not an
example, 2 = hardly an example, 3 = moderately an example, 4 = a very
good example, 5 = an extremely good example). The order of presentation
of the items was counterbalanced, and in all cases the items extracted from
the same set of materials were separated from each other by at least three
items from another set of materials. On the one hand, result showed that
the base effects clearly constituted instances of the critical SGC, Mdn = 4.3
(Range = 0.6). Furthermore, results confirmed that the "same SGC" target
effects were judged to be better examples of that SGC compared to the
"similar relations" target effects, Mdn = 4.3 (Range = 0.5) vs. Mdn = 1.4
(Range = 0.5), Z = -4.806, p < .001.
Table 1. Sample of Experimental Materials, Experiment 1
Category Base and target situations

Aggression BC: The kid asked for coins to a passerby.
BE: The passerby threw a pebble to the kid
TC: Another kid asked for coins to a passerby.
TEsr: The passerby gave his sandwich to the kid
TEsc: The passerby kicked the backpack to the kid
Reward BC: A student questioned the theory to his professor

BE: The professor raised the student's grade
TC: Another student questioned the theory to his professor
TEsr: The professor increased the suspension to the student
TEsc: The professor offered a scholarship to the student
BC: Latvian's low-income population held a manifestation
Social
against the government
Assistance BC: Maria told Paul he was amusing
BE: Paul invited her to a party
TC: Emilia told Peter he was amusing
TEsr: Peter asked her for some money
TEsc: Peter sent her flowers
Infidelity BC: Helena’s husband started spending entire weeks abroad
BE: Helena visited her ex-boyfriend
TC: Corina’s husband started spending entire weeks abroad
TEsr: Corina assisted to cultural events
TEdc: Corina had sex with his yoga instructor
Note. B
C: Base cause; BE: Base effect; TC: Target cause; TEsr: Target effect with similar relations;
TEsc: Target effect from a similar category.
Procedure
All tasks and instructions were presented on computers, with participants
working in individual stations at the laboratory. Participants of the analogy
group read a brief explanation about the potential of analogical comparisons
to infer new information about a target situation. They were then told that
they would receive a first episode involving a cause and an effect, followed
by a second episode which only included a cause, their task being to
postulate an effect for this second episode based on what had happened in
the first episode. In each experimental trial (be it a critical or a filler one),
they were asked to choose which of the two alternative effects follows
more reasonably from the analogy (Figure 1 shows how the tasks appeared
to participants). They were informed that there was no time limit and that
they could not go back to previous tasks to review them. Filler and critical
materials were presented in random order, and the order in which the two
alternative target options were displayed was counterbalanced. Prior to the
actual experimental tasks, participants performed two practical trials, during
which they could ask any questions regarding how to carry out the activity.
Figure 1. Screenshots of how the experimental task appeared to participants

of both conditions of Experiment 1
The procedure followed with participants of the target-only group was

similar to that of the analogy group, except for the following differences.
Participants read a brief description about how people hypothesize effects
for certain facts. Each of the experimental trials presented participants
with the target cause of one of the sets of materials. In each experimental
task, they were asked to choose which of two alternative effects followed
more reasonably from the presented fact (see Figure 1). Filler items were
the same as those of the analogy condition, except that the target cause
was not preceded by a base analog. Critical and filler items were presented
in random order, and the order in which the two alternative target options
were displayed was counterbalanced.
2.2 Results and Discussion 20
In the analogical
2.2 Results and Discussion condition, the inferences that belonged to the same
SGCInofthethe base condition,
analogical effect were chosen
the inferences that in 83%toofthethe
belonged samecases
SGC of(see Figure
the base effect 2).
This preference in the analogical condition to choose the category-based
were chosen in 83% of the cases (see Figure 2). This preference in the analogical condition to
options cannot be attributed to a higher intrinsic plausibility of such options
choose the category-based options cannot be attributed to a higher intrinsic plausibility of such
as reasonable consequences of the target causes, since participants of the
options as reasonable consequences of the target causes, since participants of the analogy condition
analogy condition (Mdn = .8, Range = 0.5) chose the category-based option
(Mdn = .8, Range = 0.5) chose the category-based option in a higher proportion of the trials than
in a higher proportion of the trials than participants in the target-only
participants in the target-only condition (Mdn = .4, Range = 0.6), U = 31, p < .001, who chose the
condition (Mdn = .4, Range = 0.6), U = 31, p < .001, who chose the similar
similar relations option in a higher proportion of the cases (54.4% vs. 45.6%; see Figure 3).
relations option in a higher proportion of the cases (54.4% vs. 45.6%; see
Figure 3).
100
90 Same SGC
Similar relation
Chosen Effects (%)
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Analogy Group Target-only Group
Figure 2. Effects chosen by the analogy and the target-only groups of

Figure 2. Effects chosen by the analogy and the target-only groups of Experiment 1
Experiment 1
WeWehave
have documented that for those analogies in which the gist of the information to be
documented that for those analogies in which the gist of the
transferred is better captured by relational categories than by explicit individual relations, people
information to be transferred is better captured by relational categories than
judge as sounder those inferences that are exemplars of the relational category that was readily
applicable to the base effect. A sensible research question concerns whether belonging to such a
by explicit individual relations, people judge as sounder those inferences

that are exemplars of the relational category that was readily applicable to
the base effect. A sensible research question concerns whether belonging to
such a relational category suffices as a criterion for assessing the soundness
of analogical inferences, or whether there are further restrictions that guide
a more fine-grained evaluation of such inferences. As it was postulated,
it is likely that categorizing a base effect in terms of a SGC may lead to
analyzing how the base exemplar fares along the most salient dimensions
of such SGC. Returning to the professor’s example, if a person categorizes
the professor’s action of raising the student’s grade (base effect) as a case
of reward, it seems natural to index such particular case in terms of salient
features along which rewards may vary (e.g., their magnitude). Experiment
2 was aimed at determining if people judge as sounder those inferences that
match base exemplar along salient dimensions of the SGC to which they
belong.
3. Experiment 2
The objective of the present experiment was to test the hypothesis that
the perceived soundness of analogical inferences depends on the extent to
which the SGC exemplar on which the target inference is based matches
the base exemplar along critical dimensions of the SGC. As in Experiment
1, participants in the analogical group received base analogs comprising
a base cause and its effect, followed by a target analog that consisted
in a situation in which an action that was similar to the base cause was
carried out by another individual or group. The main difference with
Experiment 1 was that instead of having to choose between a “similar
relation” and a “same category” effect, participants had to choose between
two inferences that involved exemplars of the relational category to which
the base effect belonged, with one of them being closer to base effect
along a central dimension of their relational category. In order to assess

whether an eventual inclination towards any of the alternatives was due
to the analogical comparison and not to its higher intrinsic plausibility as
a consequence of the target cause, the responses of the analogy condition
were compared to those of a second group of participants who were asked
to choose the most reasonable consequence for the target cause, but without
having previously received any base analog.
3.1 Method
Participants and Design
Fifty students at the University of Comahue (M = 22.06 years, SD = 3.23)
volunteered to participate in the experiment. After signing an informed
consent, they were randomly assigned in equal number to the analogical
and the target-only conditions.
Materials and Procedure

We employed 10 sets of materials. They comprised a base cause followed
by a base effect, plus a very similar target cause followed by two alternative
target effects pertaining to the same SGC as the base effect: while one of
them matched the base effect along a relevant dimension of their shared
SGC, the other one did so to a lesser extent. As an example, one of the
base analogs told that “A paleontologist brought important fossils to the
Trelew Museum”, for which “the museum granted him 10,000 dollars”
(see Table 2 for a sample of materials). After a target cause stating that
“Another paleontologist brought important fossils to the Rawson Museum”,
candidate target effects consisted of (a) “The museum commissioned a
statue of the paleontologist” (a reward of similar importance) and (b) “The
museum issued a diploma to the paleontologist” (a reward of mismatching
importance). To ensure that participants encoded the base consequence as
a member of the SGC whose critical dimension was being manipulated,
participants were explicitly informed about the specific category to which

the base consequence belonged. In order to prevent participants from
associating “correct” answers to exemplars involving high or low values
along a relevant dimension of their SGC, half of the matching target effects
received by each participant involved high values and half involved low
values along the critical dimension of their applicable SGC. To ensure that
the base effects intended to display low (or high) values along a relevant
dimension of their relational category were in fact perceived as displaying
such values, we asked a new group of 30 students taken from the same
population to rate the base effects along the critical dimensions of their
corresponding SGCs. Participants received each base effect coupled with
its corresponding base cause, the SGC to which it belonged, and the critical
dimension that they had to consider when evaluating them. They were
asked to rate how effects fared along said dimension using a 5-point Likert
scale ranging from the minimum to the maximum possible levels along
the manipulated dimension (e.g., for the award example, they had to rate
the magnitude of the award from 1 = very small, to 5 = huge; dimensions
varied as a function of the SGC that characterized each set). As expected,
base effects intended to have high values scored higher (Med = 4.2, Range
= .8) than effects intended to have low values, Med = 1.6, Range = 0.8,
Z = -4.794, p < .001. In order to gather an independent assessment of
our manipulation, 30 students taken from the same population received
the target effects of all sets, each one coupled with its corresponding
target cause, the SGC which it belonged, and the critical dimension to be
considered when evaluating the effect. They were asked to rate how they
fared along such dimensions using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from its
minimum to its maximum possible levels. The results showed that values of
the target effects that were presumed to be of larger magnitude were judged
to be higher than those of the effects that were presumed to be of smaller
magnitude, Mdn = 4 Range = 1.5 vs. Mdn = 1.5, Range = 1, Z = -2.842, p <
.01. The experimental procedures for both conditions were identical to their
corresponding groups of Experiment 1 (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Materials and Tasks as Presented to Participants, Experiment 2
Table 2. Sample of Experimental Materials, Experiment 2
Category Base and target situations

BC: A paleontologist brought important fossils to the Trelew
Award
Museum
BE: The museum awarded him 10,000 dollars
TC: Another paleontologist brought important fossils to the
Rawson Museum
TEsv: The museum commissioned a statue of the
paleontologist
TEdv: The museum issued a diploma to the paleontologist
Robbery BC: The old lady trusted her house’s keys to her nanny
BE: The nanny used the old lady’s facial creams
TC: Another old lady trusted her house’s keys to her nanny
TEsv: The nanny took a book from the old lady’s house
TEdv: The nanny sold the old lady's jewelry

Help BC: Daniel noticed that the economic crisis was very severe
BE: Daniel brought his empty glass jars to a poor
neighborhood
TC: Lucas noticed that the economic crisis was very severe
TEsv: Lucas took his used clothes to a poor neighborhood
TEdv: Lucas sent a truck of food to a poor neighborhood
Action Slip BC: Laura was very distracted
BE: She ingested a poisonous mushroom instead of an edible
one
TC: Laura’s friend was also very distracted
TEsv: She took a sip from the bottle of caustic soda instead of
from the lemonade
TEdv: She ate the sugar candy instead of the diet one
Contribution BC: A young man was invited to a barbecue by his friends
BE: He volunteered to lend his knife to his friends
TC: Another young man was invited to a barbecue by his
friends
TEsv: He volunteered to bring matches to his friends
TEdv: He volunteered to pay the meat to his friends
Note. B
ase cause; BE: Base effect; TC: Target cause; TEsv: Target effect with a similar value along a
key dimension of the relational category; TEdv: Target effect with a dissimilar value along a
key dimension of the relational category.
3.2 Results and Discussion

In the analogical condition, inferences with matching values were chosen
in 89.2% of the cases (see Figure 4). This preference cannot be attributed to
a higher intrinsic preferability of the matching options as consequences of
the target situations, since participants in the analogical condition chose the
matching inferences in a higher proportion of the trials than participants in
the target-only condition, Mdn = 1, range = 0.5 vs. Mdn = .3, range = 0.5, U
In the analogical condition, inferences with matching values were chosen in 89.2% of the cases
(see Figure 4). This preference cannot be attributed to a higher intrinsic preferability of the matching
options as consequences of the target situations, since participants in the analogical condition chose
the matchingCategory Membership

inferences in a higherasproportion
a Criterion to
ofEvaluate
the trialsthe Soundness
than of Analogical
participants Inferencescondition,
in the target-only 425
Mdn = 1, range = 0.5 vs. Mdn = .3, range = 0.5, U = 10.500, p < .001, where the opposite alternatives
= 10.500,
were chosen < .001,
morep often where
(66.8% vs. the opposite
33.2%; alternatives
see Figure were
4). Results thuschosen
showedmore often
that inferences
(66.8% vs. 33.2%; see Figure 4). Results thus showed that inferences based
based on exemplars that match the base case along relevant dimensions of the SGCs to which they
on exemplars that match the base case along relevant dimensions of the
belongSGCs
are perceived
to whichas they
sounder than are
belong inferences basedasonsounder
perceived exemplars
thanwhose values along
inferences basedsaid
on exemplars
dimensions whose
do not match those values along
of the base said dimensions do not match those of
analog.
the base analog.
100
90 Same VED
Chosen Effects (%)
80 Different VED
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Analogy Group Target-only Group
Figure 4. Effects chosen by the analogy and the target-only groups of

Experiment 2 chosen by the analogy and the target-only groups of Experiment 2
Figure 4. Effects
4. General Discussion
4. General Discussion
A key
A prediction of the of
key prediction CWSG approach approach
the CWSG to analogical inference is inference
to analogical that people iswill
thatgrant
people
soundness will grant
to inferences soundness
whose relations aretosimilar
inferences whose relations
to those contained are similar
in the propositions to
from which
those contained in the propositions from which the inferences were derived.
In the present study we distinguished between analogies in which the
core of the information to be transferred resides in the explicit individual
relations of unmapped propositions and analogies in which this nucleus is
better captured by the SGCs to which these propositions belong. For this
second type of analogies, in Experiment 1 we obtained that soundness did
not depend on the similarity between base and target relations, but instead
on the fact that the target exemplar pertains to the same SGC as the base
exemplar. In Experiment 2 we collected data favoring a further hypothesis

associated with our category-based perspective, namely, that when judging
the soundness of analogical inferences people attend to whether target
exemplars match base exemplars along critical dimensions of the category
to which base and target pertain.
The present investigation raises the question as to whether the standard
models of analogical inference can be extended to explain the category-
based inference mechanism proposed here. In order to simulate the kind of
processing revealed by the evidence obtained in the present work, computer
models should be able to classify events in terms of SGCs, as well as to
index such events along critical dimensions of the SGC to which they
belong. We do not feel confident to suggest that the standard models of
analogical thinking cannot incorporate this processing into their algorithms,
but have the intuition that the assimilation of the required abilities may
not be just around the corner. To illustrate, recognizing exemplars of SGCs
would require analyzing how specific fillers of a given role in a proposition
(e.g., agent, patient or object) affect the meaning of the other roles of that
proposition. Just to exemplify, if someone sends flowers to somebody
else, interpreting flowers as something romantic will only be adequate if
the agent of the action can plausibly be interested in awakening a certain
emotion in the patient, and if the patient can be considered a candidate for
being attracted by the agent at stake. This way, a girl sending flowers to her
grandmother or a lady sending flowers to a widow should not be regarded
as romantic expressions of love. To the best of our knowledge, models such
as SME (Falkenhainer et al., 1989; Forbus et al., 2017) or LISA (Hummel
& Holyoak, 1997, 2003) are incapable of interpreting the meaning of
a role as a function of which specific entities are filling the remaining
roles of a proposition. This task of interpreting a fact must go hand in
hand with the access to the categories that the system considers to be of
potential relevance in light of the alternative interpretations that they elicit.
Interpreting an unmapped fact as an instance of a SGC would surely imply

an interplay between bottom-up (from the fact to the SGC) and top-down
(from SGCs to the fact) processes, in which the analysis of the semantic
dependencies maintained by the elements composing SGCs and exemplars
would play an important role. Once the base fact has been assigned to a
SGC, the system should explore that SGC, identify its salient dimensions
and qualify the exemplar along the chosen dimensions.
It is possible, however, that we are requesting that the analogical
machinery carries out a task that lies beyond its responsibility. Indeed,
defenders of the standard approach tend to consider that the processes of
analogical inference proposed in the presented study are perfectly tractable
by the standard models just the way they are, without incorporating
any abilities akin to the ones we have described. Our erroneous demand
would allegedly originate in not distinguishing between computing an
analogical inference and the previous comprehension phase that would
provide the inputs that are required for computing analogical inferences
(we have responded to these objections in works such as Minervino et
al., 2013, 2023 or Oberholzer et al., 2018). According to the standard
approach, the analogical machinery was not designed to carry out the
task of understanding the analogs that will take part in the formulation
of analogical inferences (e.g., interpreting a fact as an instance of a SGC
and indexing it in terms of how it fares along relevant dimensions of
the category), but to operate once these analogs have already been fully
understood. In this sense, the formulation of an analogical inference from an
unmapped base fact will be carried out at the higher-level, most meaningful
construal of the unmapped facts (e.g., as an instance of a SGC) and not at
the superficial, low level in which we find poorly informative relations.
From this perspective, understanding how the situations to be compared are
interpreted does not constitute a problem for theories of analogical thought,
since the analogical machinery operates on the output of the systems that
are responsible for interpreting the situations.

For the sake of the argument, let’s imagine that the unmapped facts
from which inferences will be drawn are received by systems like SME or
LISA as already interpreted in terms of convenient SGCs. The differences
between the CWSG and the category approach would become a discussion
about whether or not CWSG can successfully operate on the more
meaningful, higher-level description of the unmapped facts generated
by the interpretation systems. As its transparent name indicates, CWSG
consists in copying unmapped base relations (recognized as such because of
being multiplace predicates), substituting corresponding source entities with
target entities, and generating slots for base entities that were unmapped. In
order to discuss whether CWSG could be applied to unmapped facts that
have been recognized as exemplars of SGCS, let’s go back to an example
included in the Introduction section:
Base analog: John loves Mary. This made John send flowers to Mary.
Target analog: Peter loves Susan.
Suppose that the analogizer interprets that the act of sending flowers is an
expression of love and that CWSG then operates on that representation. We
believe this is the more reasonable way to represent this interpretation of
the base analog:
CAUSE [LOVE (John, Mary), EXPRESS (John, love, Mary)]
As can be seen, we could not reduce the category expression of love to a

proposition in which the gist of the information to be transferred lies in
the explicit relation represented by the predicate outside the parenthesis.
Instead, we had to distribute the meaning between the predicate express
and the argument love. As express says little or nothing by itself, all the
problems that we have indicated that CWSG suffers when the nucleus of
the information does not reside in the relational predicate will reappear at
this new level of representation. Indeed, the generated inference template
would be:
EXPRESS [John, (something playing the role of love), Mary]
As we have extensively analyzed, CWSG is not able to provide the basis

upon which this template can be properly completed by post-inferences
processes, on the grounds that it does not indicate how the slot derived from
love should be filled.
The standard approach could contend that, prior to the activity of
interpreting the analogy, people detect the SGC to which the unmapped fact
belongs and transforms that SGC in a “single” relational predicate that can
include all kinds of elements (e.g., actions, entities, and entity properties).
It could argue that one should not be committed with the idea that any
relational predicates should correspond to a single word from natural
language (e.g., a verb), since the perception of what constitutes a relation
does not depend on the concrete means that a particular language offers to
describe that relation. The initial representations of the analogs could thus
take this form:
Base analog: CAUSE [LOVE (John, Mary), EXPRESSION OF LOVE

(John, Mary)]
Target analog: LOVE (Peter, Susan)
Given these representations, the system could then generate the following
inference: LOVE (Peter, Susan), EXPRESSION OF LOVE (Peter, Susan).
As we understand it, the proposal that relational predicates can include
all kinds of elements (e.g., entities and properties of entities) would devoid
of content the very concept of relation, reducing said concept to “whatever

the cognitive system included as a predicate outside the parenthesis in a
multiplace proposition”. The characterization of the concept through a
capricious formalist maneuver of this nature evades a fundamental task in
any theory of analogical thought: that of characterizing in psychological
terms what relations are (Popov et al., 2020). For decades, a way of
achieving at least some basic sense of support in such a slippery terrain
has consisted in establishing parallels between representational elements
and units of speech. Relations may be understood as tantamount, but not
reducible, to transitive verbs, while objects correspond to entity nouns, and
attributes correspond to adjectives (Silliman & Kurtz, 2019). An analogy
is attained when the mapping of two structured representations reveals
conceptually similar relations, that is, when the relations between different
objects and object properties are the same across representations (Gentner,
1983; Gentner & Kurtz, 2006). If a relation can now be a noun that
represents a SGC whose description includes relations, objects and object
properties, what once was a firm base has ceased to be so. Ironically, that’s
exactly the direction in which the categorial approach defended in this work
tries to advance. Let’s us explain our point of view.
Embracing the categorial perspective does not imply in any way calling
into question the importance of relational aspects in analogical thinking.
Rather, it advocates discussing and amplifying the meaning of “relational”,
so as to avoid reducing it to systems of multiplace predicates. The concept
could be broadened to include, for example, relational structures such
as those captured by SGCs. In these structures, single explicit relations
represent only one of the relevant constituents, being other thematic roles
(e.g., agents, patients, objects or instruments) just as important as the local
relations. For a given fact to constitute an exemplar of a SGC, the entities
that fill the thematic roles in the propositional structure will also need
to satisfy certain relational properties. For example, if an instance of the
category love expression includes the relation send, the agent’s intention
should be to awake certain emotions in a person, the patient has to be a
candidate for being emotionally affected by the agent at stake, and the
object should be pleasant to the patient. The complex interdependency of
the constituents of a fact that makes it pertain to a SGC makes it proper
to talk about these categories as “relational”, but the sense of the term
is broader than the one employed by dominant theories of analogy (i.e.,
systems of multiplace predicates).
A second problem with the standard approach´s response to our proposal
concerns its assumption that the analogical machinery works on a single
representational level (i.e., the one that captures the abstract meaning
of the facts by applying, for example, a SGC). Such assumption entails
that the system discards as irrelevant the specific content of the base fact
from which the inference is derived (e.g., the fact that sending flowers
was the specific instance of expression of love). As we have shown in this
study, however, this second level could be necessary for selecting target
exemplars that match the base exemplar along relevant dimensions of
the shared SGC. Again, the standard approach could reply by stating that
this commonsensical fact would be naturally explained by the CWSG
approach by assuming that the cognitive system begins its operation with
ideal representations in which all the relevant aspects of the analogs were
included, so as to facilitate the production of sound inferences. Thus, if
sending flowers was judged as a romantic expression of love, the system
could provide this input to the analogical machinery:
ROMANTIC-EXPRESSION OF LOVE (John, Mary)
And the inference would be identical, except for the necessary

replacements:
ROMANTIC-EXPRESSION OF LOVE (Peter, Susan)
It seems clear that the post-inference subprocesses would not know how
to assign specific content to this inference. Indeed, what the system should
know is that the base fact has been assigned to a SGC, and that it has
been qualified along a certain dimension in a particular way, so that what
becomes necessary is to search the target domain for a comparable instance
of that category. This is what the categorical perspective defended here
proposes, and what CWSG is not capable of including as a guideline in the
template it generates.
As we have seen, the categorial account of analogical inference herein
proposed seems relevant for other subprocesses of analogical thinking such
as retrieval (Olguin et al., 2017), re-representation (Oberholzer et al., 2018)
or analogy evaluation (Tavernini et al., 2017). Its central idea would be that
whenever two facts belong to a common SGC, the comparison process is
framed by the semantic structure of said category, and often follows the
criteria that govern how category exemplars are compared at large. The
study of concepts has recently witnessed a growing interest in relational
categories, long overshadowed by the study of entity or artifact categories
(Goldwater & Schalk, 2016; Popov et al., 2020). The development of these
investigations will be crucial for theories connecting the study of concepts
with the field of analogical thinking. It is possible that this disconnection
stemmed from an artificial separation between the activity of representing
analogs and that of interpreting the analogy, long criticized precisely by
authors who have sought to promote a view of analogy-making as a case of
categorization (e.g., Hofstadter & FARG, 1995; Hofstadter & Sander, 2013).
Funding This work was supported by Grants PICT 23522019-02542 and PICT 2019-
32682650 from the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Research of
Argentina (ANPCyT), and by Grant PIP018 from the National Council for Scientific and
Technical Research (CONICET).
Declarations
Consent to Participate All participants signed an informed consent for participation.
Conflict of Interest The authors have no conflict of interests to disclose
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Category Membership As A Criterion To Evaluate The Soundness of Analogical Inferences

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Category Membership As A Criterion To Evaluate The Soundness of Analogical Inferences

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Category Membership as a Criterion to

Evaluate the Soundness of Analogical Inferences

Ricardo A. Minervino1,2*, Adrián Margni1, Lucía Micaela Tavernini1,2

Received 04 October 2023; Revised 28 December 2023; Accepted 29 December 2023

The cognitive mechanisms unveiled by the current results suggest

Key words: analogy, inference, relational categories, evaluation,

Drawing an analogy involves retrieving a known situation (base analog)

designed to gather evidence for the proposed mechanism.

1.1 The Standard Approach to Analogical Inference: Copy with

In the first place, our system is capable of differentiating between

relation] (Bruno, shoes, [something playing the role of a hose], Marcos).

the tumor problem have operationalized analogical retrieval through the

1.2 The Category Approach to Analogical Inference

Again, the template SEND [or a similar relation] (Peter, [something

values on analogical retrieval.

Table 1. Sample of Experimental Materials, Experiment 1

Category Base and target situations

Reward BC: A student questioned the theory to his professor

Figure 1. Screenshots of how the experimental task appeared to participants

The procedure followed with participants of the target-only group was

2.2 Results and Discussion 20

Figure 2. Effects chosen by the analogy and the target-only groups of

by explicit individual relations, people judge as sounder those inferences

along a central dimension of their relational category. In order to assess

Materials and Procedure

participants were explicitly informed about the specific category to which

Figure 3. Materials and Tasks as Presented to Participants, Experiment 2

Table 2. Sample of Experimental Materials, Experiment 2

Category Base and target situations

TEdv: The nanny sold the old lady's jewelry

3.2 Results and Discussion

the matchingCategory Membership

Figure 4. Effects chosen by the analogy and the target-only groups of

exemplar. In Experiment 2 we collected data favoring a further hypothesis

Interpreting an unmapped fact as an instance of a SGC would surely imply

are responsible for interpreting the situations.

CAUSE [LOVE (John, Mary), EXPRESS (John, love, Mary)]

As can be seen, we could not reduce the category expression of love to a

EXPRESS [John, (something playing the role of love), Mary]

As we have extensively analyzed, CWSG is not able to provide the basis

Base analog: CAUSE [LOVE (John, Mary), EXPRESSION OF LOVE

of content the very concept of relation, reducing said concept to “whatever

ROMANTIC-EXPRESSION OF LOVE (John, Mary)

And the inference would be identical, except for the necessary

ROMANTIC-EXPRESSION OF LOVE (Peter, Susan)

Conflict of Interest The authors have no conflict of interests to disclose

A. Ortony (Eds.), Similarity and Analogical Reasoning (pp. 199–242). New

Holyoak, K. J. (2012). Analogy and relational reasoning. In K. J. Holyoak & R.

Minervino, R. A., Oberholzer, N., & Trench, M. (2008). Similarity between

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