Developmental Patterns in the Solution of Verbal Analogies

Abstract

STERNBERG, ROBERT J., and NIGRo, GEORGIA. Developmental Patterns in the Solution of Verbal Analogies. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 27-38. 20 subjects in each of grades 3, 6, 9, and in college were tested in their relative abilities to solve 180 verbal analogies based on 5 different verbal relations. Analogies were presented in 3 different formats varying in the number of terms in the analogy stem versus the number of terms in the analogy options. It was found that (a) a componential theory of analogical reasoning was successful in accounting for response-time data at all grade levels and error data at all but the college level; (b) thirdgraders and sixth-graders used a strategy that differed in key respects from the strategy used by ninth-graders and college students; (c) antonymous and functional relations were easier to process at all levels than were synonymous, category membership, and linear ordering relations; and (d) a new method of isolating component cognitive processes-the method of stemsplitting-provided new insights into age-related strategy changes in the solution of verbal analogies.

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