Working Memory and Inhibition as Constraints on Children’s Development of Analogical Reasoning

Working Memory and Inhibition as Constraints on Children’s Development of Analogical Reasoning Lindsey E. Richland (lengle@psych.ucla.edu) Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563 Robert G. Morrison (robertmorrison@xunesis.org) Xunesis PO Box 269187, Chicago, IL 60626-9187 Keith J. Holyoak (holyoak@lifesci.ucla.edu) Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563 The process of constructing an analogy requires a reasoner to represent source and target analogs, maintain both representations in working memory (WM; Hummel & Holyoak, 1997, 2003), and construct a mapping between elements of the source and target based upon correspondences between relations in each (Gentner, 1983; Holyoak & Thagard, 1989). Critically, the relational correspondences may compete with more superficial perceptual or semantic similarities between individual objects, requiring inhibitory control when relational and more superficial responses conflict (Gentner & Toupin, 1986; Morrison et al., 2004; Viskontas et al., in press). Abstract We developed a picture-mapping task (Richland Picture Analogies, RPA) to examine the roles of inhibition and working-memory load on children’s development of analogical reasoning. Children of ages 3-4, 6-8, and 13- 14 were instructed to use relational correspondences between source and target pictures to select the target object corresponding most directly to a specified source object. The study examined age trends in children’s proficiency with analogical reasoning. Relational complexity and perceptual distraction were manipulated to investigate how maturational constraints interact with each other and with age. Results indicate that children’s development of the capacity to reason analogically interacts with increases in working-memory capacity and inhibitory control. Proposed Developmental Mechanisms Researchers have proposed three developmental mechanisms to explain age-related changes in children’s performance on analogical reasoning tasks: increased domain knowledge, a relational shift, and increased WM capacity for manipulating relations. Goswami (1992, 2001) proposed domain knowledge as the primary mechanism underlying developmental changes in analogical reasoning. According to her relational primacy hypothesis, analogical reasoning is available as a capacity from early infancy, but children’s analogical performance increases with age due to increased knowledge about relevant relations. This hypothesis was developed in reaction to Piagetian studies suggesting that children are unable to reason analogically prior to achieving formal operations, approximately at age 13 or 14 (Piaget, Montangero & Billeter, 1977). Piaget’s tasks frequently involved uncommon relations, such as “steering mechanism”, which would likely have been unfamiliar to younger children. In contrast, research has since shown children can reason analogically at much Children’s higher-order reasoning skills are central to their ability to transfer knowledge from an initial learning context to future environments. This process enables children to understand novel situations and contexts, to build on their everyday learning experiences and to develop a flexible body of knowledge (Gentner, Holyoak & Kokinov, 2001; Gentner & Rattermann; 1991; Holyoak, Junn & Billman, 1984). Following Gentner (1983), analogy is defined as a conceptual strategy in which a source object is represented as similar to a target object, and correspondences are mapped between the two analogs. Although there is wide agreement that this conceptual process is central to children’s everyday learning, the mechanisms underlying and constraining the development of analogical reasoning are not yet well understood.