Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: A Theory and its Computer Implementation

We describe a computer model of how humans use concepts fluidly in order to create analogies. Our model is centered on the Slipnet, a network of overlapping concepts whose shapes are determined dynamically by the situations faced by the program. Reciprocally, the state of the Slipnet controls how the program perceives situations. The heart of what the program does, give two situations, is to produce a worlds-mapping: a course-grained mental correspondence between the situations, involving two interdependent and mutually consistent facets: an object-to-object mapping realized in structures called bridges, and a concepts-to-concept mapping realized in structures called pylons. Each pylon expresses a so-called conceptual slippage, borrowed from the Slipnet. Taken together, the slippages constitute a recipe for translating actions in one situation into their analogues in the other. Through the "coattails effect", slippages can induce closely related slippages, allowing deeper and more subtle analogies to be produced than would otherwise be possible. We believe this model has the potential to create analogies with insight. It has already been realized in one idealized domain, but needs extension. We are continuing our work in that domain, and in addition are trying the model in two new domains, each of which · should push our ideas in new directions and at the same time provide a stringent test for them.