When can problem solving be aided by analogical reasoning
Reber (1995) describes an analogy as “a description, argument or explanation based on a systematic comparison of one ‘thing’ with another, already known ‘thing’.” From this definition ‘analogical reasoning’ can be described as, reasoning where decisions about a presented ‘problem’ are made depending on comparisons and similarities between that ‘problem’ and a known situation.
In order to determine when problem solving can be aided by analogical reasoning it is first necessary to look more closely at the concepts of ‘problems’ and ‘problem solving’. A ‘problem’ can basically be defined as, a situation where a particular ‘goal’ needs to be achieved and some of the components needed in order to achieve this have to be determined before the ‘goal’ can be reached. Dunker (1945) (cited by Garnham et al (1999)) defined a problem as arising “when a living organism has a goal, but does not know how to how this goal is to be reached”. Reitman (1965) (cited by Gilhooly (1997)) proposed that there were three components to a problem a ‘starting state’ a ‘goal state’ and a set of ‘operators’ that transform the ‘starting state’ to the ‘goal state’. There are countless numbers of different types of problem that may arise and these problems are very diverse in composition. Gilhooly (1997) identifies some of the main classifications that different problems have been grouped into. A problem can be ‘well-defined’ where the component parts of the ‘start’, ‘operator’ and ‘goal’ are clear, for example in a board game the starting point, the goal and the method of moving from one to the other is relatively well specified. Or a problem can be ‘ill-defined’ where one or more of the component parts are vague. Problems can also be ‘semantically rich’, where an individual is able use previous background knowledge to solve a problem for example having been show the instructions to a board game beforehand, or ‘semantically poor’ where an individual has relatively little background knowledge
In order to determine when problem solving can be aided by analogical reasoning it is first necessary to look more closely at the concepts of ‘problems’ and ‘problem solving’. A ‘problem’ can basically be defined as, a situation where a particular ‘goal’ needs to be achieved and some of the components needed in order to achieve this have to be determined before the ‘goal’ can be reached. Dunker (1945) (cited by Garnham et al (1999)) defined a problem as arising “when a living organism has a goal, but does not know how to how this goal is to be reached”. Reitman (1965) (cited by Gilhooly (1997)) proposed that there were three components to a problem a ‘starting state’ a ‘goal state’ and a set of ‘operators’ that transform the ‘starting state’ to the ‘goal state’. There are countless numbers of different types of problem that may arise and these problems are very diverse in composition. Gilhooly (1997) identifies some of the main classifications that different problems have been grouped into. A problem can be ‘well-defined’ where the component parts of the ‘start’, ‘operator’ and ‘goal’ are clear, for example in a board game the starting point, the goal and the method of moving from one to the other is relatively well specified. Or a problem can be ‘ill-defined’ where one or more of the component parts are vague. Problems can also be ‘semantically rich’, where an individual is able use previous background knowledge to solve a problem for example having been show the instructions to a board game beforehand, or ‘semantically poor’ where an individual has relatively little background knowledge
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