La Teoría de la Asignación Categorial Sobre el Pensamiento Analógico: un Desafío a la Teoría de la Proyección de Estructura

The dominant theory of analogical thinking since the 1980s is the structure mapping theory. In this paper, a new theory about reasoning by analogy is presented: the category assignment theory. It is argued that this theory is able to explain better than the first how a specific type of analogies are interpreted and evaluated, namely, those in which the facts compared constitute examples of a schema-governed category. The arguments presented are accompanied by brief descriptions of the studies that provided support for the new theory. The responses of the structure-mapping theory to the objections raised by the category proposal are discussed.La teoría dominante sobre el pensamiento analógico desde los 80 hasta la actualidad es la teoría de proyección de estructura. En este trabajo se presenta una nueva teoría sobre el razonamiento por analogía: la teoría de la asignación categorial. Se argumenta que esta teoría es capaz de explicar mejor que la primera cómo se interpretan y evalúan un tipo específico de analogías, a saber, aquellas en las que los hechos comparados constituyen ejemplares de una categoría relacional de esquema. Los argumentos presentados son acompañados por breves descripciones de los estudios que brindan apoyo a la nueva teoría. Se discuten las respuestas de la teoría de proyección de estructura a las objeciones formuladas por la teoría de la asignación categorial

The Understanding of Visual Metaphors by the Congenitally Blind

Results from a narrow set of empirical studies suggest that blind individuals’ comprehension of metaphorical expressions does not differ from that of sighted participants. However, prominent accounts of metaphor comprehension yield different predictions about the blind’s ability to comprehend visual metaphors. While conceptual metaphor theory leads to predicting that blind individuals should lag behind their sighted peers in making sense of this particular kind of utterances, from traditional accounts of analogical reasoning it follows that blind individuals’ ability to comprehend the literal meaning of visual concepts might be sufficient to support their metaphorical application. In Experiment 1, 20 sighted and 20 congenitally blind participants were asked to select the most appropriate meaning for visual, grasping and filler metaphorical expressions. Results failed to reveal group differences for any type of metaphorical expressions. In order to implement a more stringent test of blind individuals’ ability to understand visual metaphors, in Experiment 2 blind and sighted participants were presented with very novel figurative expressions, as indicated by low or no occurrence in the “Google” corpus. In line with the results of Experiment 1, blind participants’ comprehension of visual metaphors was both high in absolute terms and comparable to that of sighted participants. We advance some speculations about the mechanisms by which blind individuals comprehend visual metaphors and we discuss the implications of these results for current theories of metaphor