Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisor: Arthur B. Markman. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-125).

What does driving a sports car have to do with a first kiss, shopping in New York or purchasing a pair of designer shoes? These comparisons were used in a recent ad campaign for the Alfa Romeo Spider and are prime examples of an experiential analogy. The predominance of experiential analogies in recent advertisements suggests that they are persuasive. Yet understanding what comes to mind when consumers process these comparisons remains to be investigated. By drawing on analogy and consumption experience literatures, an important moderator of analogical persuasiveness is identified, preference for the base experience, and the influence of emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes is explored. Substantial focus has been devoted to understanding how consumers learn and are persuaded by functional analogies. Digital cameras have been compared to computer scanners, personal digital assistants to secretaries and off-line web readers to VCRs. These functional analogies differ substantially from experiential analogies where consumers are encouraged to compare two experiences. Three studies were conducted to investigate what contributes to the persuasive effect of an experiential analogy. Study 1 explored how base preference moderates the effect of emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes. The findings suggest that an analogy is maximally persuasive for those who like the experience that an advertised product is compared to and cognitively associate a high number of emotions with the advertised product. In Study 2, a cognitive load manipulation was used to provide additional support for the effect of emotional knowledge transfer and base preference on consumer attitudes. Study 3 explored another important moderator, emotional soundness, specific to the persuasiveness of an experiential analogy. The findings from Study 3 further replicated the effect of base preference and emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes and demonstrate that there needs to be sufficient underlying similarities in order for one to infer that the comparison experience and the advertised target product would have emotions in common with one another. The role of affect in the processing of an experiential analogy was also investigated. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was: 1) to identify reading disability subtypes among a sample of reading-disabled students using two classification methods, 2) to discover the processes and strategies used in analogical reasoning by individual reading disabled and nonreading-disabled students through the method of componential analysis, and 3) to explore the relationship between the processes and strategies used by disabled readers in analogical reasoning and their membership in a reading disability subtype. In Phase 1 of the study, groups of normal and disabled readers were established using Grade 5 students attending elementary schools in a large urban area of Northwestern Ontario. The disabled sample of 77 students comprised 41 males and 36 females and the normal reader sample of 20 students comprised 7 males and 13 females. In Phase 2, the disabled and normal readers were individually administered the Boder Test of Reading-Spelling Patterns (Boder & Jarrico, 1982), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (Dunn & Dunn, 1981), and subtests taken from the Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty (Durrell & Catterson, 1980) . The Schematic Picture Analogies Test (Sternberg & Rifkin, 1979) was administered to students in small groups. The first method of subtyping, the Boder test, failed to identify subtypes among the reading-disabled sample because the students were not as severely disabled as the clinic-referred sample for which the test was designed. The second method, which employed a hierarchical agglomerative technique of cluster analysis using students' scores obtained on 23 reading and related variables, differentiated the normal readers from the disabled readers. Three clusters emerged when the reading-disabled data were analyzed alone that were characterized by strengths and weaknesses in their reading skills. Componential analysis of students' analogical reasoning data used mean solution latency as the criterion or dependent variables. Independent or predictor variables were associated with the systematically varied level of difficulty of each of 24 analogy booklets. Seven models theorized by Sternberg (1977) were fitted to each individual's booklet scores through multiple regression analysis and the preferred model chosen according to five predetermined criteria (Sternberg & Rifkin, 1979). Disabled readers were grouped according to the processes and strategies they used in solving analogies. The normal reader group solved analogies as predicted but there was no relationship between membership in a reading disability cluster and membership in an analogy subgroup. None of the analogy subgroups could be characterized by their reading performance although the subgroup that used the most efficient model tended to have higher ability than the other subgroups. Correlations between solution latency and reading and related variables for the normal readers showed that the more proficient analogical reasoners were faster, more accurate readers and better comprehenders. Few significant correlations were detected between solution latency and reading variables for the disabled readers. The lack of relationship between the two systems is perhaps the most surprising and paradoxical finding of the study. It is suggested that this occurred because reading-disabled children, irrespective of the cluster to which they belong, may solve analogies in a unique way, or because the bottom-up, content-driven nature of the reading task is so fundamentally different from the top-down, content-free nature of the analogical reasoning task. Other explanations suggest that the use of measures at a macro level to form reading-disabled clusters masks any relationship with the analogical reasoning subgroups formed by measures at a micro level, or that component processing is so specific to the individual that differences are buried within the subtypes implying the existence of subtypes within subtypes. Some of the implications for education are discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

The mean is a commonly employed descriptor of a set of numbers, and forms the basis for several related statistics. Evidence indicates many undergraduates do not possess a relational understanding of the mean concept (Pollatsek, Lima, and Well, 1981). Pollatsek et.al.(1981) postulated three types of knowledge are involved in understanding the mean: functional, computational, and analog knowledge. Many of the college students they interviewed did not appear to posses adequate functional and computational knowledge, while none showed behaviors which might suggest they possessed analog knowledge.

No description available.

There are multiple sorts of reasoning by analogy between two domains; the one with which we are concerned is a type of contextual analogy. The purpose of this paper is to see whether two domains that look analogous would be analogous in all aspects and contexts. To perform this, we analyse the domain according to different particularities. For each particularity or context we continue the analysis and search for another one within the same domain. In this way we create a kind of structure for the different domains. This sort of analysis is represented by frames and frames which are nested within each other. This paper describes this concept and an implemented system "MULTI_ANALOG", a limited example of knowledge-acquisition, problem solving, and automatic-acquisition based on this particular form of analogy namely structural analogy.

The study investigates the effects of a professional development strategy which focuses on the use of a contextually appropriate analogy on the development of isiXhosa speaking learners‟ conceptual understanding in direct current electric circuits, where the language of instruction is English. An action research design was implemented, using three data collection cycles to document the research journey. The sample comprised of two Grade 8 and 9 classes drawn (with their respective Natural Sciences teachers) from two neighbouring, township schools in Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipal area. Qualitative data were generated from interviews and classroom observation of the two science teachers (a qualified and an unqualified teacher) and learners, over a span of two years. Thematic data analysis revealed that ESL learners have alternative conceptions in simple circuits and teachers have no knowledge about analogies that can be used to teach simple circuits. A professional development was designed as a strategy, targeting the development of the Science Content Knowledge (SCK) and Topic Specific Content Pedagogic Content Knowledge (TPSCK) of the teachers. Data analysis of the professional development initiative (PDI) suggests that the teachers developed increased knowledge of concepts and teaching strategies used in teaching simple circuits, selected a contextually appropriate analogy and taught a lesson in simple circuits using the selected analogy. Analysis of learners‟ post-test results suggests that the implementation of the selected analogy developed their conceptual understanding as more learners developed the correct, scientific model of reasoning. The results of the study suggest that when teachers are given support by being exposed to professional development; their scientific reasoning, confidence and classroom climate become more positive and learners‟ conceptual understanding improves.

The field of category learning is replete with theories that detail how similarity and comparison based processes are used to learn categories, but these theories are limited to cases in which item and category representations consist of feature vectors. This precludes these methods from learning relational categories, where membership is determined by the structured relations binding the features of a stimulus together. Fortuitously,  researchers within the analogy literature have developed theories of comparison that account for this structure.  This thesis bridges the two approaches, describing a theory of category learning that utilizes the representational frameworks provided by the analogy literature to learn categories that may only be described through the appreciation of the structured relations within their members. This theory is formalized in a model, Building Relations through Instance Driven Gradient Error Shifting (BRIDGES), that shows how relational categories can be learned through attention-driven analogies between concrete exemplars.  This approach is demonstrated through several simulations that compare similarity-based learning and alternatives, such as rule-based abstractions and re-representation.  We then present a series of experiments that explore the reciprocal impact of relational comparison on category structure and category structure on relational comparison.  This work provides a theoretical framework and formal model suggesting that feature-based and relation-based categories are a continuum that are learned through selective attention and similarity-based comparison. / text

Research in science education over the past 20 years has emphasized the importance of active cognition in conceptual development. Students formulate knowledge within language constructions constrained by culture and social construction and relate to their own purposes using speech and writing. Many students in high school do not recognize the use of analogy in the development of science theory and concepts. By focusing on the constructed nature of science and analogy this thesis aimed to determine the capacity of high ability students to engage their own thinking and so have a powerful tool with which to deconstruct and reconstruct their scientific understandings. This thesis focused on the use of analogy in a Year 7 electricity unit and a Year 9 geology unit and used examination questions, quizzes, diary entries and interviews to determine the role of analogies in learning. The specific research questions asked were: Can high ability students create their own analogies?, What role do analogies play in learning?, and How do analogies help students in concept development? The thesis found that analogies are powerful tools in supporting student conceptual development. They allow students to link from their existing framework to new understandings and visual analogs were the most effective in supporting learning. The students move to new understandings may not happen within the teaching time but could occur several months after the introduction of the analogy. / High ability students are able to recognize and construct their own analogies; however, many students have difficulty deconstructing analogies on their own. The content of the student created analogies seemed to be associated with activities involving reflection and reflection time emerged as a critical component of the learning process. The role of analogies in providing a focus for discussion with peers, teachers and parents so that ideas could be thought about, tested and clarified was found to be one of their important functions in supporting learning.