Explain how problems are solved by analogy.

Explain how problems are solved by analogy.

There have been many experiments conducted and the results show that using analogies to solve problems can really be very effective.

Whenever people encounter problems in their daily life it is very useful to explore differenet alternatives and perhaps consider whether another problem that the person has solved before is similar to the new problem. It can very often happen that we can apply the same or similar methods to solve quite distinctive problems, yet with perhaps the same properties.

There are few very interesting examples in the book which show how problems are solved by analogy. If we take a patient with a tumor (radiation problem) and fortress story we can see how it works.

-Bombarding the tumor in the center with a number of low-intensity rays from different directions destroys the tumor without damaging the tissue it passes through.
-Dividing the army into small groups dispatching each group to the head of a different road. Instructing the groups to continue down its road to the fortress in order to capture it and overthrow the dictator.

Gick and Holyok proposed that the process of analogical problem solving can be explained/achieved in 3 steps:
1.Noticing that there is an analogous relationship between two problems (one encountared before and a new one).
2.Mapping the correspondance between them.
3.Applying the mapping to generate a parallel solution to the new/target problem.