From the structure-mapping theory of Dedre Gentner (Structure-Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy, 1983), extended by Keith Holyoak and Paul Thagard (Mental Leaps, 1995) and by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander (Surfaces and Essences, 2013).
Borrows the pattern of relationships from a well-understood field and maps it onto a problem, generating ideas and showing where the analogy breaks.
When to reach for it
When a problem's own vocabulary keeps producing the standard answers and a fresh angle from another domain could open it up.
How it runs
- State the target problem.
- Pick a source domain known in depth.
- List the source's relationships, its verbs, and leave its objects aside.
- Map each relationship onto the target.
- Keep the ones that hold, and draw ideas from them.
- Study where the analogy breaks; that shows the target's real structure.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Structure-Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy, Cognitive Science, 1983
- Mental Leaps: Analogy in Creative Thought, 1995
- Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, 2013