Humans have a uniquely sophisticated ability to see past superficial features and to understand the relational structure of the world around us. This ability often requires that we compare structures, finding commonalities and differences across visual depictions that are arranged in space, such as maps, graphs, or diagrams. Although such visual…

Learning relational categories--whose membership is defined not by intrinsic properties but by extrinsic relations with other entities--poses a challenge to young children. The current work showed 3-, 4- to 5-, and 6-year-olds pairs of cards exemplifying familiar relations (e.g., a nest and a bird exemplifying "home for") and then tested whether…

This research investigates the development of analogy, in particular, the study of the development of systematicity in analogy. Systematicity refers to the mapping of systems of mutually constraining relations, such as causal chains or chains of implication. A preference for systematic mappings is a central aspect of analogical processing in…