Analogies Flashcards
Analogical Reasoning
When a person perceives similarities and differences between objects of events and uses that information to solve problems or to learn about the world
Analogical Reasoning in School
- Called upon to understand complex problems:
— Mathematics
— Decoding and comprehending text
— Learning to spell
— Interpreting figurative expression
- Examined through “second-order analogies”
- A is to B as C is to ______
- Fish: scales :: bird: ______ (beak, molt, feathers, wings)
Development of Analogical Reasoning
- Gradually improves throughout life
— Greater speed and accuracy
— Greater use of systematic problem solving strategies
— Greater comprehension of semantically and structurally complex problems
— More adept at explaining solutions (metalinguistics)
- Can measure students’ knowledge of domain specific information through second-order analogy task (Alexander et al., 1998)
Improvement in performance at end of semester since beginning?
Development of Analogical Reasoning
- Performance on analogies tasks improve as a result of:
– Formal instruction in content areas
– Internal variables
—- Chronological age
—- Cognitive level
—- Academic achievement
—- Problem-solving style of the individual
- External variables
—- Semantic and structural complexities of the problem
Internal Factors- Age to verbal analogical reasoning
- Preoperational Stage (5 & 6 y.o.):
- Successfully formed pairs
- Could not coordinate pairs to complete analogies
- If they did complete an analogy, could not explain why it was correct
- Easily swayed by related alternatives - Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 10 y.o)
- More analogies completed (mostly through - trial and error)
- Better explanations provided
- Related alternatives still accepted (mostly by 7 & 8 y.o) - Formal Operational Stage (11 & 12 y.o)
- Successfully completed most of the analogies (without using trial and error)
- Explanations superior to younger children
- Better able to resist counter-suggestions
Internal Factors – Academic achievement to verbal analogical reasoning
- Students in 9th grade – high achievers compared to low achievers based on grades Metropolitan Achievement Tests
- High achievers outperformed low achievers on all three set of problems
- Low achievers: mean accuracy score of 63%
- High achievers: mean accuracy score of 84%
Internal Factors – Problem-solving style to verbal analogical reasoning
- Solving through word association:
— High association solvers score more errors on test items when associative responding is possible
— However, perform equally well when associative responding not possible on test item
—- Have capacity to solve via analogical reasoning but do not always do so
—- This strategy diminishes during school-age years and by early adolescence
—— But adolescents revert to strategy to solve complex third-order analogies
- Impulse problem-solving:
—- Perform tasks quickly and inaccurately
- Reflective problem solving:
—- Perform tasks slowly and accurately
External Factors – Semantics to verbal analogical reasoning 1
- Difficulty of analogies due to different types of relationships
— Easiest:
—— Synonymous- weep is to cry as smile is to___ (joke, grin, play, mouth)
—— Antonymous- clear is to cloudy as shallow is to ___ (narrow, muddy, swift, deep)
—— Characteristic property- wheel is to round as arrow is to ___ (bow, wood, shoot, straight)
- Somewhat challenging:
—– Superordinate- shirt is to clothing as hammer is to ___ (nails, hit, tools, screwdriver)
—– Part-whole- leg is to knee as arm is to ___ (hand, wrist, elbow, sleeve)
- Most difficult:
—– Causal – fire is to smoke as water is to ___ (liquid, ice, steam, drink)
—– Functional – time is to clock as weight is to ___ (pound, hour, watch, scale)
—– Sequential- Tuesday is to Sunday and Friday is to ___ (Monday, Wednesday, Sunday, week)
External Factors – Semantics to verbal analogical reasoning 2
- Difficulty of analogies due to vocabulary level of words contained in problems
— Low < moderate < high
—— Low - happy : glad :: angry: ___
—— Moderate – silly : foolish :: thoughtful
—— High – belligerent : warlike :: mollifying :
— Overall performance improves steadily due to grade level
— Consider:
—– Word knowledge vs. logical reasoning skills
—– World knowledge is closely associated with word knowledge
External Factors – Structure to verbal analogical reasoning 1
- Under two different conditions:
— Generative task – supply the missing term and no choices given
—— Less skilled/younger children unable to explain or defend responses
— Multiple choice task – analogy question followed by 5 choices (some close associates to third item of analogy)
—– Younger children respond associatively
External Factors – Structure to verbal analogical reasoning 2
- Under two different forms:
1. True analogy – written in form of proportion (bird is to air as fish is to water)
2. Quasi analogy – written in sentence form and contains verbs that specify the relationship between the terms (a bird flies in the air; a fish swims in the water)
—- Results of study: Significantly easier than true analogies for 9 y.0., but no advantage to 12 and 15 y.o.
Analogical Reasoning in Younger Children
- Basic ability to reason by analogy early on in life is apparent through testing when tasks are free of additional linguistic, metalinguistic, and conceptual demands:
—- Various parts of human body compared to certain features on pictured objects
——— e.g. If this tree had a knee, where would it be?
—- Multiple-choice task for nonreaders using pictures and simple vocabulary and syntax
——- Functional relationships
——- Location relationships
——- Understanding how objects have been transformed
——- Relationships between a story and a nonverbal problem-solving task
Assessments 1
- Test of Auditory Reasoning and Processing Skills (TARPS)
- ages 5 to 14
- English only
- assesses children’s ability to draw conclusions, make inferences, and to apply & use judgment
- subtests: General Information, Arithmetic Reasoning, Verbal Absurdities, Finding Reasons, Analogical Completions, Comprehension, Directional Orientation, Similarities
Assessment 2
- Test of Adolescent and Adult Language-4th Edition (TOAL-4)
- ages 12.0 to 24.11
- English only
- assesses spoken and written language abilities
- subtests: Word Opposites, Word Derivations, Spoken Analogies, Word Similarities, Sentence Combining, Orthographic Usage
Treatment Techniques
- Use real objects to show what’s alike and different (e.g. hold up a beach ball and an apple)
- Make a list of similarities & differences (e.g. write list on chalkboard comparing apartment building and house)
- Write definitions of items in a notebook to find similarities (e.g. wrote definitions for ocean and lake)
- Drawing pictures of items to see similarities & differences (draw picture of dog and cat)
- Expand on analogies to increase child’s knowledge (e.g. Bird: Cage:: Dog:___list several features of each item and then other things that chare those features
