Flowing Waters or Teeming Crowds: Mental Models of Electricity.

Analogical comparisons are commonly used in the discussion and teaching of scientific topics. This paper explores the conceptual role of analogy. We compare two position 1 the generative analogy hypothesis, that analogies are an imported determinant of the way people think about a domain 2 the surface terminology hypothesis, that analogies merely provide a convenient vocabulary for describing concepts in the domain. We present evidence from interviews and experimental studies in the domain of simple electronics that when using analogies, people map conceptual structures from one domain to another. This important conceptual structure is shown to influence inferences a person makes about the target domain. These results support the generative analogy hypothesis.