Facilitation of analogical problem-solving by presentation or production of a "lesson"

The present research investigated whether analogical problem-solving is facilitated when abstract knowledge is presented as a lesson in cover stories. In Experiment 1, participants (120 male and 95 female university students) were given 1 of the following : a convergence story only (control condition), a convergence story plus abstract knowledge presented as a lesson (lesson-principle condition), a convergence story plus abstract knowledge presented as a problem-solving method (method-principle condition), and a convergence story plus the suggestion that the story indicated certain lessons (lesson-only condition). Then participants attempted to solve the convergence problem. The results showed that the percentage of correct answers by spontaneous analogy under the lesson-principle condition was significantly higher than that obtained under any of the other conditions. These results suggest that the presentation of abstract knowledge as a lesson facilitates spontaneous analogy. In Experiment 2, in which participants (162 male and 16 female university students) were required to draw a conclusion from a lesson when given the same base domain as the lesson-only condition in Experiment 1, the percentage of correct answers by spontaneous analogy was close to that obtained under the lesson-principle condition.