Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T11:02:53.480Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Growing cognition from recycled parts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2008

Robert Leech
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom. r.leech@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.alphalab.psyc.bbk.ac.uk/RobertLeech.htmld.mareschal@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/dmareschalr.cooper@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/rcooper
Denis Mareschal
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom. r.leech@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.alphalab.psyc.bbk.ac.uk/RobertLeech.htmld.mareschal@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/dmareschalr.cooper@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/rcooper
Richard P. Cooper
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom. r.leech@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.alphalab.psyc.bbk.ac.uk/RobertLeech.htmld.mareschal@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/dmareschalr.cooper@bbk.ac.ukhttp://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/rcooper

Abstract

In this response, we reiterate the importance of development (both ontogenetic and phylogenetic) in the understanding of a complex cognitive skill – analogical reasoning. Four key questions structure the response: Does relational priming exist, and is it sufficient for analogy? What do we mean by relations as transformations? Could all or any relations be represented as transformations? And what about the challenge of more complex analogies? In addressing these questions we bring together a number of supportive commentaries, strengthening our emergentist case for analogy (in particular with insights from comparative psychology), and review new supportive evidence. We also rebut those commentaries that ignore development at their peril. Along the way, we revisit the main assumptions underlying the analogy as relational priming (ARP) account of analogy, clarifying and elaborating as necessary.

Type
Authors' Response
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bates, E. & Goodman, J. C. (1997) On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon: Evidence from acquisition, aphasia and real-time processing. Language and Cognitive Processes 12:507–84.Google Scholar
Chapman, L. J., Chapman, J. P., Curran, T. E. & Miller, M. B. (1994) Do children and the elderly show heightened semantic priming? Developmental Review 14:159–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheshire, A., Ball, L. J. & Lewis, C. N. (2005) Self-explanation, feedback and the development of analogical reasoning skills: Microgenetic evidence for a metacognitive processing account. In: Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. Bara, B. G., Barsalou, L. & Bucciarelli, M., pp. 435–41. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cheshire, A., Muldoon, K., Francis, B., Lewis, C. N. & Ball, L. J. (2007) Modelling change: New opportunities in the analysis of microgenetic data. Infant and Child Development 16:119–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehaene, S., Naccache, L., Cohen, L., LeBihan, D., Mangin, J. F., Poline, J. B. & Rivière, D. (2001) Cerebral mechanisms of word masking and unconscious repetition priming. Nature Neuroscience 4:752–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doumas, L. A. A., Hummel, J. E. & Sandhofer, C. M. (2008) A theory of the discovery and prediction of relational concepts. Psychological Review 115:143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duscherer, K., Mounoud, P., Moy, G. & Perraudin, S., (in press) The influence of action perception on object recognition: A developmental study. Developmental Science.Google Scholar
Elman, J., Bates, E., Johnson, M. H., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D & Plunkett, K. (1996) Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on development. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Estes, Z. & Jones, L. L. (2006) Priming via relational similarity: A copper horse is faster when seen through a glass eye. Journal of Memory and Language 55(1):89101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, R. M. (2002) The computational modeling of analogy-making. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6:200205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gentner, D., Rattermann, M. J., Markman, A. B. & Kotovsky, L. (1995) Two forces in the development of relational similarity. In: Developing cognitive competence: New approaches to process modeling, ed. Simon, T. J. & Halford, G. S., pp. 263313. LEA.Google Scholar
Goswami, U. & Brown, A. L. (1989) Melting chocolate and melting snowmen: Analogical reasoning and causal relations. Cognition 35:6995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goswami, U. & Brown, A. L. (1990) Higher-order structure and relational reasoning: Contrasting analogical and thematic relations. Cognition 36:207–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gould, S. J. (1992) Bully for brontosaurus. Penguin.Google Scholar
Gust, H., Krumnack, U., Kühnberger, K.-U. & Schwering, A. (2007) Integrating analogical and inductive learning at different levels of generalization. In: LNVD 2007: Learning from Non-Vectorial Data. Proceedings of the KI-2007 Workshop Held in Osnabrück, Germany, September 10th, 2007; Publications of the Institute of Cognitive Science, vol. 6, ed. Geibel, P. & Jain, B. J., pp. 4657. Institute of Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
Hahn, U., Chater, N. & Richardson, L. B. C. (2003) Similarity as transformation. Cognition 87:132.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hosenfeld, B., van der Maas, H. L. J. & van den Boom, D. C. (1997) Indicators of discontinuous change in the development of analogical reasoning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 64:367–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Larkey, L. B. & Love, B. C., (2007) Relations as transformations: Implications for analogical reasoning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 60:897908.Google Scholar
Leech, R., Mareschal, D. & Cooper, R. (2007) Relations as transformations: Implications for analogical reasoning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 60:897–890.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marcus, G. F. (2004) The birth of the mind: How a tiny number of genes creates the complexities of human thought. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Mareschal, D., Johnson, M. H., Sirois, S., Spratling, M., Thomas, M. & Westermann, G. (2007) Neuroconstructivism, vol. I: How the brain constructs cognition. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mareschal, D. & Thomas, M. S. C. (2007) Computational modeling in developmental psychology. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (Special Issue on Autonomous Mental Development) 11(2):137–50.Google Scholar
Marr, D. (1982) Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. (1891) Thus spake Zarathustra.Google Scholar
Oden, D., Thompson, K. R. & Premack, D. (2001) Can an ape reason analogically? Comprehension and production of analogical problems by Sarah, a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). In: The analogical mind: Perspectives from cognitive science, ed. Gentner, D., Holyoak, K. & Kokinov, B., pp. 471–97. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Opfer, J. & Bulloch, M. (in press) What makes relational reasoning smart? Revisiting the perceptual-to-relational shift in the development of generalization. Developmental Science.Google Scholar
O'Reilly, R. C. (1996) Biologically plausible error-driven learning using local activation differences. Neural Computation 8:895938.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piaget, J., Montangero, J. & Billeter, J. (1977) La formation des correlats. In: Recherces sur l'abstraction reflechissante I, ed. Piaget, J., pp. 115–29. Presses Unversitaires de France.Google Scholar
Rattermann, M. J. & Gentner, D. (1998a) More evidence for a relational shift in the development of analogy: Children's performance on a causal-mapping task. Cognitive Development 13:453–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richland, L. E., Morrison, R. G. & Holyoak, K. J. (2006) Children's development of analogical reasoning: Insights from scene analogy problems. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 94:249–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shultz, T. R. (2003) Computational developmental psychology. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Smith, L. B. (2000) Avoiding associations when it's behaviorism you really hate. In: Becoming a word learner: A debate on lexical acquisition, ed. Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Bloom, L., Smith, L. B., Woodward, A. L., Akhtar, N., Tomasello, M. & Hollich, G.. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Spellman, B. A., Holyoak, K. J. & Morrison, R. G. (2001) Analogical priming via semantic relations. Memory and Cognition 29:383–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sternberg, R. J. (1977a) Component processes in analogical reasoning. Psychological Review 84:353–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, M. S. C. & Mareschal, D. (1997) Connectionism and psychological notions of similarity. In: Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. Shafto, M. G. & Langley, P., pp. 757–62. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Thomas, M. S. C. & Mareschal, D. (2001) Metaphor as categorisation: A connectionist implementation. Metaphor and Symbol 16:527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar