When faced with something new, human beings instinctively reach for comparisons. A child learning about atoms might hear that electrons orbit the nucleus “like planets orbit the sun.” An entrepreneur ...

People solve new problems readily without any special training or practice by comparing them to familiar problems and extending the solution to the new problem. That process, known as analogical ...

Analogical reasoning, the process of identifying correspondences between seemingly disparate domains, is fundamental to human cognition. It facilitates problem solving and learning by allowing ...