Error analysis of expressive analogy task in Spanish-English bilingual school age children with and without specific language impairment

textPurpose: The relational shift hypothesis (RSH) states that, as children age, the way in which they interpret analogies shifts from a focus on object similarities to relational aspects of objects. This study investigated the validity of the RSH by describing the error patterns of typically developing (TD), low normal (LN), and language impaired (LI) bilingual school-age children when completing an expressive analogy task in A:B::C:D format (e.g. good:bad::happy:_____) in English and Spanish. Method: Participants included a total of 49 Spanish-English bilingual children between the ages of 7;4 and 8; 9 (mean = 8; 1). Ten children were identified as LI, ten scored in the LN range, and 29 were TD. Children were administered English and Spanish versions of the item twice, initially during the second grade and once again approximately one year later. Responses were recorded verbatim and coded as correct (C), thematic/category error (THEM/CAT), wrong object, correct relationship error (WO-CR), unrelated error (UNREL), or repetition/no response (REP/NR). Results: A repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare children’s analogy scores by time, ability, and language. Results demonstrated significant differences for ability. Four chi square tests investigated the error patterns of TD, LN, and LI bilingual children in English and Spanish. We compared responses provided children by response type (C, THEM/CAT, WO-CR, UNREL, or REP/NR). Results from the Spanish analogical reasoning task indicated a decrease in THEM/CAT with age for the LN and TD children. Results from the English analogical reasoning task were inconsistent. Conclusions: Results provide partial support for the RSH in LN and TD children, but not in children with LI. This difference in error patterns may provide insight into the validity of the RSH in bilingual children with specific language impairment and typically developing second language learners.Communication Sciences and Disorder

Specialization of the rostral prefrontal cortex for distinct analogy processes

Analogical reasoning is central to learning and abstract thinking. It involves using a more familiar situation (source) to make inferences about a less familiar situation (target). According to the predominant cognitive models, analogical reasoning includes 1) generation of structured mental representations and 2) mapping based on structural similarities between them. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to specify the role of rostral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in these distinct processes. An experimental paradigm was designed that enabled differentiation between these processes, by temporal separation of the presentation of the source and the target. Within rostral PFC, a lateral subregion was activated by analogy task both during study of the source (before the source could be compared with a target) and when the target appeared. This may suggest that this subregion supports fundamental analogy processes such as generating structured representations of stimuli but is not specific to one particular processing stage. By contrast, a dorsomedial subregion of rostral PFC showed an interaction between task (analogy vs. control) and period (more activated when the target appeared). We propose that this region is involved in comparison or mapping processes. These results add to the growing evidence for functional differentiation between rostral PFC subregions

Understanding analogical reasoning : viewpoints from psychology and related disciplines

Analogy and metaphor have a long history of study in linguistics, education, philosophy and psychology. Consensus over what analogy is or how analogy functions in language and thought, however, has been elusive. This paper, the first in a two part series, examines these various research traditions, attempting to bring out major lines of agreement over the role of analogy in individual human experience. As well as being a general literature review which may be helpful for newcomers to the study of analogy, this paper attempts to extract from these literatures existing theories, models and concepts which may be interesting or useful for computational studies of analogical reasoning

Ambiguity is a double-edged sword: similarity references in communication

Designers often explain new concepts and new ideas by reference to existing designs. This is parsimonious, as it only requires a pointer to the referent and a description of the modifications. Such descriptions can be extremely powerful, expressing the entire context of a design or a process in a few words. However similarity assertions are inherently ambiguous, because they depend not only on the chosen description but also on the intention behind the similarity comparison. In this paper we attempt to analyse the effect that the ambiguity of similarity references has on communication and idea generation in design. The reinterpretation of a similarity assertion can be extremely creative, where ambiguity allows for new interpretations of a problem. At the same time, it can make accurate communication extremely difficult because every assertion can be interpreted differently unless the context is fully shared

Probabilistic Analogical Mapping with Semantic Relation Networks

The human ability to flexibly reason using analogies with domain-general content depends on mechanisms for identifying relations between concepts, and for mapping concepts and their relations across analogs. Building on a recent model of how semantic relations can be learned from non-relational word embeddings, we present a new computational model of mapping between two analogs. The model adopts a Bayesian framework for probabilistic graph matching, operating on semantic relation networks constructed from distributed representations of individual concepts and of relations between concepts. Through comparisons of model predictions with human performance in a novel mapping task requiring integration of multiple relations, as well as in several classic studies, we demonstrate that the model accounts for a broad range of phenomena involving analogical mapping by both adults and children. We also show the potential for extending the model to deal with analog retrieval. Our approach demonstrates that human-like analogical mapping can emerge from comparison mechanisms applied to rich semantic representations of individual concepts and relations

Applying Analogical Reasoning Techniques for Teaching XML Document Querying Skills in Database Classes

XML has become the most ubiquitous format for exchange of data between applications running on the Internet. Most Web Services provide their information to clients in the form of XML. The ability to process complex XML documents in order to extract relevant information is becoming as important a skill for IS students to master as querying relational databases. But the language for querying XML documents is very different from SQL, which is the query language that IS students typically learn in their database courses. Nevertheless, the database course seems to be the most plausible venue for teaching XML document querying, given the IS 2010 model curriculum. Unfortunately, there are time limitations that may prevent deep coverage of XML in the typical database class. Analogical pedagogy may provide a means to quickly provide significant XML query skills to students who are already familiar with SQL query mechanics. This paper describes a simple but effective way of incorporating XML querying within the broader database course content by making use of analogical reasoning