Retrieval in Analogical Reasoning: The Influence of Structure-Focused Encoding on Spontaneous Access.

Airom E.Bleicher

School of Psychology

University of Quensland

St Lucia, Queesland

A thesis submitted to fulfil the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts Honours degree.

October 24, 2001

                      Abstract

The current study theorized that spontaneous analogical access was predicted by the degree that base structure was separable from base objects during retrieval (SIR theory). In line with this theory, it hypothesized that an inconsistency between laboratory and field studies on participants’ ability to spontaneously retrieve base structure was the result of a lack of separation of structure from objects during encoding in the laboratory situation. Sixteen male and twenty-four female participants were randomly assigned into one of four encoding conditions. Replicating procedures used by Dunbar Blanchette and Chung (cited Dunbar 2001), one group was made to focus on structure by actively generating analogies to base statements. A second was led to focus on structure less actively by being led to believe that they would have to generate analogies after encoding. A third was a control in which individuals were simply told to memorize the information. A fourth condition, which was new to the design, involved participants actively re-writing the base statements as an aid to recall. This was to control for the possibility that strength of encoding, rather than SIR, was responsible for improved spontaneous retrieval. To identify that retrieval of structure and objects can occur separately, the study included a measure of object-retrieval in addition to the measure of structural-retrieval.

Findings supported the notion that base object and structural retrieval could occur separately and that this could be effected by encoding condition. However, results were inconclusive as to whether this separation influenced retrieval. Observation of non-significant trends suggests that both separation of base structure from objects and strength-of-encoding may play separate roles in influencing spontaneous analogy retrieval.

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