Structure-Mapping

Gentner, D. (1983). Structure-Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy. Cognitive Science, 7(2), 155-170.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

1983

DOI

10.1207/s15516709cog0702_3

Link

https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0702_3

Cited from

cognitive_science, communication_media_studies, linguistics_semiotics, psychology

Cited by

7 citations across 7 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Analogy
  • The abstraction has six core structural specifications: (1) there are two distinct domains with their own elements, relations, and causal structure; (2) the relational alignment operates not by surface similarity but by the roles elements play in the underlying structure (the Sun maps to the atomic nucleus because both occupy the "center with smaller bodies orbiting" role, not because they are spatially or materially similar); (3) the systematic mapping preserves higher-order relations—causal, functional, dependency—so that valid inferences in the source become conjectures in the target (if gravitational attraction holds bodies in orbit, then perhaps an analogous attractive force holds electrons in orbit); (4) the systematicity principle (Gentner 1983) states that analogies with richer, deeper, and more interconnected relational structures are stronger and more cognitively useful than those based on isolated feature matches; (5) the candidate inference emerges from the projection: given the mapping, what can we infer about the target that we could not infer from the target alone; (6) the analogy is evaluable—not all mappings are equally good, and analogies succeed or fail based on the depth and systematicity of the relational correspondence.
• Comparison
  • The pattern separates an unstructured set of items from a structured relational claim about those items, and names the work required to get from one to the other; Gentner's (1983) structure-mapping theory formalizes the same separation in the analogy case, distinguishing the surface-level comparands from the higher-order relational structure that the alignment rule must preserve.
• Metaphor
  • All metaphors are analogies; not all analogies are metaphors in the linguistic/cognitive sense
• Transfer of Learning
  • Transfer-appropriate processing — the fit between how knowledge is encoded at training and how it must be deployed at test — moderates whether acquired structures activate in the target domain.
• Translation and Conceptual Bridging
  • Analogy is asymmetric, as Gentner (1983) formalizes in her structure-mapping theory: the source domain is used to illuminate the target, but the source itself is not transformed.

Mechanisms

• Analogical Path Transfer
  • Structure-mapping theory names the corrective precisely: sound analogies align relational structure

    This sourceDefines analogy by mapping relational structure rather than surface attributes.

• Functorial Transfer Probe
  • When it succeeds, it licenses reusing hard-won structure across domains; when it fails, the failure is specific and instructive.

    This sourceModels analogy as mapping structured knowledge from a base domain into a target domain.

Verification

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