Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Visual comparisons are ubiquitous in STEM education. We suggest that visual comparisons are carried out by a structuralalignment process that draws correspondences between analogs based on relational structure (Sagi, Gentner, & Lovett,2012). The spatial arrangement of images can influence visual comparisons by increasing or decreasing competitionfrom incorrect correspondences (Matlen, Gentner, & Franconeri, 2020). The present study tested whether this could beleveraged to help children compare complex STEM-related images. Seventh graders were shown drawings of skeletonscontaining an anomalous bone, either solo or paired with a correct standard. Children were more accurate at finding theanomaly when given a correct standard to compare to. On especially difficult trials in which skeletons were shown innon-canonical orientations (e.g., a cow oriented vertically), performance was enhanced when the spatial placement of thetwo skeletons was direct, minimizing competing correspondences. Thus, direct placement may help students comparecomplex unfamiliar images.