Distant Connections: The Memory Basis of Creative Analogy

Analogical thinking lies at the core of human cognition, pervading from the most mundane to the most extraordinary forms of creativity. By connecting poorly understood phenomena to learned situations whose structure is well articulated, it allows reasoners to expand the boundaries of their knowledge.

The first part of the book begins by fleshing out the debate around whether our cognitive system is well-suited for creative analogizing, and ends by reviewing a series of studies that were de...