Learning from examples: Rule abstraction and/or instance memorization?

In this article we examine how questions in two different domains are similar : work on reasoning by analog), and that of implicit learning. There is a disagreement between theories that associate transfer with generalization of knowledge, and theories that associate transfer with memorization of examples. First, we present a review of research from these two domains, proposing the hypothesis that abstract rules and examples can be elaborated conjointly. Then, we show that this hypothesis is plausible with regard to work concerning the organization of knowledge in experts, and we discuss the potential type of relations between these processes. Finally, we discuss the contributions of a comparison between the domain of reasoning by analogy and that of implicit learning.