Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Visual comparison is a key process in everyday learning.Matlen et al. (2020) recently proposed the Spatial AlignmentPrinciple, based on the broader work of structure-mappingtheory in comparison. According to the principle, visualcomparison is more efficient when pairs are arranged in directplacement: i.e., so that the visuals are juxtaposed orthogonallyto their structural axes. In this placement (a) the intendedrelational correspondences are readily apparent, and (b) theinfluence of potential competing correspondences isminimized. Thus, this placement should make the relationalalignment maximally easy to notice. The results of a same-different task in adults supported this claim. The current studyasks whether the Spatial Alignment Principle applies inchildren’s visual comparison. 6-year-old children performed asame-different task for visual relational patterns. The resultsindicated that direct placement led to faster and more accuratecomparison, both for concrete same-different matches(matches of both objects and relations) and for purely relationalmatches.