Marvin W. Daehler - US grants

Analogical transfer is an essential component of cognitive processing that expands the ability of humans to solve problems in a variety of contexts. It is a powerful basis by which unique and creative solutions to problem situations are derived and serves as a common hallmark of adaptive, intellectually competent behavior in academic, work, and social environments. However, the occurrence of analogical transfer is a complex phenomena requiring the integration of a wide range of mental processes and structures. The development of many of these factors have not been extensively investigated. Interpretations of learning and transfer in younger children often emphasize the shared perceptual or surface characteristics ("identical elements") of problem situations, whereas rule-like and more abstract solution principles are more likely to be associated with explanations of learning and transfer in older children and adults. In this research a series of experiments with elementary school age children is designed to explore how similarity in perceptual surface features (main character, goal object, thematic and contextual information, mode of presenting the problem, etc.) and structural features of problems (the higher order causal solution principle) influence representation of information and transfer in analogical problem solving. This research is proposed to yield a more complete picture of whether there are developmental differences in the importance and kinds of surface features that bear upon children's noticing of analogical problem situations and how different forms of perceptual and contextual similarity affects representation of solution principles and transfer. Additionally, work is proposed to examine how structural aspects of analogical problems affect the ability of children of different ages to map analogical solution principles to transfer problems.

Between the ages of one and three, children undergo a remarkable
improvement in their ability to realize that a word, a picture, or some
other symbol such as a model can stand for or represent another object or
array. This representational insight is a central and pervasive aspect of
human thinking. For example, we see representational capacities being
displayed when a preschooler engages in imaginative play, and in the
older child, when he or she understands that the words printed on a piece
of paper refer to some event, feature, or other aspect of the world. The
ability to understand symbols, and what they refer to, is a powerful
intellectual ability that underlies much of human communication,
thinking, and problem solving.

Some representational abilities emerge over a very short period
in early development. To illustrate, if a child 30 months of age
is asked to watch as a toy is hidden behind a piece of furniture in a
room and is then instructed to find a similar toy now hidden behind an
identical, but much smaller piece of furniture in a model of that room
(about the size of a doll house), he or she will have great difficulty
doing so. A 3-year-old, however, just six months older displays this type of
transfer very easily. The difficulty for the younger child is not
merely one of forgetting where the toy was hidden initially since he or
she can easily find the original toy when asked to do so. The problem for
the younger child seems to be in appreciating that the model represents
the large room and, thus, in understanding that information provided in
the first array (the room) can be transferred and help in searching for
the toy located in the second array (the model).

Younger children, however, show systematic biases in their search
behavior. For example, they often look in the location on the transfer
task where they previously found the toy in an earlier search, and these
kinds of biases may interfere with their representational insight.
Several studies are outlined to eliminate the influence of these biases
and to examine whether tasks that involve the initiation of distinctive
actions and imitative behaviors, rather than search for an object,
provide a more effective way to demonstrate transfer and representational
capacities in very young children. In addition, new types of transfer
situations are created to assess whether the representational limitations
extend to tasks involving any large array and a model of it or are
uniquely associated with spaces such as rooms (within which the child
moves about) and models of rooms (where the child surveys or overlooks
the entire space). The findings will provide a more complete
understanding of the early representational competencies of very young
children and help to identify the factors that contribute to learning
and transfer involving symbols and their referents.