Similarity and analogy are fundamental in human cognition. They are crucial for recognition and classification, and have been associated with scientific discovery and creativity. Any adequate understanding of similarity and analogy requires the integration of theory and data from diverse domains. This interdisciplinary volume explores current development in research and theory from psychological, computational, and educational perspectives, and considers their implications for learning and instruction. The distinguished contributors examine the psychological processes involved in reasoning by similarity and analogy, the computational problems encountered in simulating analogical processing in problem solving, and the conditions promoting the application of analogical reasoning in everyday situations.

For a long time researchers have believed that children are incapable of reasoning by analogy. This book argues that this is far from the case, and that analogical reasoning may be available very early in development.

Lifespan human development is the study of all aspects of biological, physical, cognitive, socioemotional, and contextual development from conception to the end of life. In approximately 800 signed articles by experts from a wide diversity of fields, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development explores all individual and situational factors related to human development across the lifespan. Some of the broad thematic areas will include: Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood Aging Behavioral and Developmental Disorders Cognitive Development Community and Culture Early and Middle Childhood Education through the Lifespan Genetics and Biology Gender and Sexuality Life Events Mental Health through the Lifespan Research Methods in Lifespan Development Speech and Language Across the Lifespan Theories and Models of Development. This five-volume encyclopedia promises to be an authoritative, discipline-defining work for students and researchers seeking to become familiar with various approaches, theories, and empirical findings about human development broadly construed, as well as past and current research.

Analogy has been the focus of extensive research in cognitive science over the past two decades. Through analogy, novel situations and problems can be understood in terms of familiar ones. Indeed, a case can be made for analogical processing as the very core of cognition. This is the first book to span the full range of disciplines concerned with analogy. Its contributors represent cognitive, developmental, and comparative psychology; neuroscience; artificial intelligence; linguistics; and philosophy. The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes computational models of analogy as well as their relation to computational models of other cognitive processes. The second part addresses the role of analogy in a wide range of cognitive tasks, such as forming complex cognitive structures, conveying emotion, making decisions, and solving problems. The third part looks at the development of analogy in children and the possible use of analogy in nonhuman primates. Contributors Miriam Bassok, Consuelo B. Boronat, Brian Bowdle, Fintan Costello, Kevin Dunbar, Gilles Fauconnier, Kenneth D. Forbus, Dedre Gentner, Usha Goswami, Brett Gray, Graeme S. Halford, Douglas Hofstadter, Keith J. Holyoak, John E. Hummel, Mark T. Keane, Boicho N. Kokinov, Arthur B. Markman, C. Page Moreau, David L. Oden, Alexander A. Petrov, Steven Phillips, David Premack, Cameron Shelley, Paul Thagard, Roger K.R. Thompson, William H. Wilson, Phillip Wolff

This work tackles the most intriguing type of reasoning which one may employ within the field of law. In addition to the merits and drawbacks of legal analogy, it discusses the orthodox approaches to it, together with their critical analysis, also posing challenges that these conceptions have difficulty in managing. As an alternative, the book advances an account of legal analogical reasoning that correlates well with the division into rational and intuitive thinking that occurs in contemporary psychology. By doing so, many of the unique properties of legal analogy which have been traditionally associated with it and which have often been difficult to explain become readily understandable. Moreover, the very source of the almost mystical faith in power and infallibleness of such analogy is revealed here, while this faith—astonishing or not—not only escapes condemnation, but is shown to be warranted from a scientific point of view. Finally, the book also presents vast scope of application, premises, schematic structures and factors able to influence the force of legal analogy.

This handbook is an essential, comprehensive resource for students and academics interested in topics in cognitive psychology, including perceptual issues, attention, memory, knowledge representation, language, emotional influences, judgment, problem solving, and the study of individual differences in cognition.