SEARCH AND ACCEPTANCE IN ANALOGICAL PROBLEM-SOLVING

Sometimes problems can be solved by referring back to similar already solved problems from one's own prior experience. Prerequisite for doing this is to find such a similar problem and to check if it can serve as a model for solving the new problem. Therefore part one analyzes how typical approaches in analogy research are dealing with search for and acceptance of prior knowledge. It will be shown, that these processes are especially important in analogical problem solving. In part two an experimental study is reported. The results support the expectation, that surface structure features are important for search whereas deep structure features seem to be responsible for acceptance.