The Cognitive Role of Analogical Abduction in Skill Acquisition

In this paper, we discuss the cognitive role of analogical abduction in skill acquisition. Abductive inference makes it possible to find missing links that explain a given knack in achieving a skillful task. We introduced meta level abduction to realize rule abduction which is mandatory in finding intermediate missing links to be added in knack explanation. Analogical abduction can be achieved by adding analogical inference rules to causality rules within meta level abduction. We have applied our analogical abduction method to the problem of explaining the difficult cello playing techniques of spiccato and rapid cross strings of the bow movement. Our method has constructed persuasive analogical explanations about how to play them. We have used a model of forced vibration mechanics as the analogy base world for spiccato, and the specification of the skeletal structure of the hand as the basis for the cross string bowing technique. We also have applied analogical abduction to show the effectiveness of a metaphorical expression of "eating pancake on the sly" to achieve forte-piano dynamics, and successfully identified an analogical explanation of how it works. Through these examples, we show the effectiveness of analogical abduction in skill acquisition. Furthermore we discuss the importance of meta level representation as a basis for providing rich human cognitive paradigm such as causality, analogy and metaphor. Finally we propose a cognitive architecture which gives a possible structure for realizing accommodation on our analogical abduction schema.