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Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios
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Expert analogy use in a naturalistic setting.
Donald R Kretz1, Daniel C Krawczyk2
1School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, TX, USA.
Frontiers in Psychology
|December 16, 2014
Summary
Experts use diverse analogies in economics discussions. Analogy type depends on goals and expertise, balancing concrete examples with abstract concepts for effective communication.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Economics
Background:
- Analogy is a key aspect of human cognition.
- Analogy production is influenced by context, expertise, and intent.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the characteristics of analogies used by economics experts.
- To determine the categorical distance and structural depth of these analogies.
- To categorize the purposes for which analogies were generated.
Main Methods:
- Observational study of economics experts during scientific discussions.
- Analysis of analogical comparisons for categorical distance and structural depth.
- Characterization of the purposes behind analogy generation.
Main Results:
- Analogy characteristics (distance, depth) were more balanced than in previous studies.
- The most common purpose was providing concrete examples for general concepts.
- Other frequent purposes included visual imagery, colorful speech, and concept differentiation.
Conclusions:
- Expertise and the economics discipline foster diverse analogical comparisons.
- Analogy purpose correlates with distance: visual analogies often use outside-domain sources, while exemplification uses within-domain sources.
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