Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Ramscar & Pain (1996) argued that the analogical process cannot be easily distinguished from the categorisation process at a cognitive level. In light of the absence of any distinction between analogy and categorisation, we have argued that analogy is supervenient upon an important part of the classification process, and that as such 'analogical' models are capable of illuminating some categorisation tasks, for instance, the way in which structural systematicity can detennine not only analogical judgements, but also category decisions. Our scepticism regarding the cognitive distinction between these two processes has implications for both analogy and categorisation research: in this paper we consider two leading analogical theories. Centner's Structure Mapping Theory and Holyoak's Multi-Constraint Theory, and argue that results from our use of analogical modeling techniques in categorisation tasks offer some important insights into exactly which elements should be included in a theory of analogical mapping.