In any given analogy, there are potentially a large number of possible mapping interpretations. One of the key issues in analogy research is how one of these mappings comes to be selected as optimal and used as the basis for the analogical comparison. It is well-established that structural factors, notably systematicity, can act as selection constraints on mapping. The present work tests to see if pragmatic and adaptation factors can also act as selection constraints on mapping. The selection of a mapping based on pragmatic factors proposes that people can exploit the higher-order, schematic structure of a domain to select one mapping over another. With respect to adaptation factors, the proposal is that a mapping will be selected if it is evaluated as being easily adapted relative to other competing mappings. Both of these predictions are tested in a novel, problem solving paradigm. The main finding is that adaptation factors do act as a selection constraint but that pragmatic factors do not. The implications of these results for computational models of analogy are discussed.

The Incremental Analogy Machine (lAM) predicts that the order in which parts of an analogy are processed can affect the ease of analogical mapping. In this paper, the predictions of this model are tested in two experiments. Previous work has shown that such order effects can be found in attribute-mapping problems. In the first expenment, it is shown that these effects generalise to relational-mapping problems, when subjects' error performance (incorrect mappings) is considered. It is also found that relational mapping problems are significantly harder than attribute mapping problems. In the second experiment, it is shown using relational-mapping problems, that order effects can be demonstrated for doubles (two sentences about two indiviudals) in these problems. Throughout the paper it is shown that these results are best approximated by lAM's measure of the complexity of global mappings (the remaps complexity measure), and not as has been found previously, by a measure using frequency of remaps (the re-maps measure). The empirical and theoretical significance of these results are discussed.