Editing Analogy (section)

===== Children =====
Children do not always need prompting to make comparisons in order to learn abstract relationships. Eventually, children undergo a relational shift, after which they begin seeing similar relations across different situations instead of merely looking at matching objects.<ref name=":5">{{Citation|last1=Hespos|first1=Susan J.|title=Structure-Mapping Processes Enable Infants' Learning Across Domains Including Language|date=2020|url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35594-4_5|work=Language and Concept Acquisition from Infancy Through Childhood: Learning from Multiple Exemplars|pages=79–104|editor-last=Childers|editor-first=Jane B.|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-3-030-35594-4_5|isbn=978-3-030-35594-4|access-date=2020-12-09|last2=Anderson|first2=Erin|last3=Gentner|first3=Dedre| s2cid=213450124 }}</ref> This is critical in their cognitive development as continuing to focus on specific objects would reduce children's ability to learn abstract patterns and reason analogically.<ref name=":5" /> Interestingly, some researchers have proposed that children's basic brain functions (i.e., working memory and inhibitory control) do not drive this relational shift. Instead, it is driven by their relational knowledge, such as having labels for the objects that make the relationships clearer(see previous section).<ref name=":5" /> However, there is not enough evidence to determine whether the relational shift is actually because basic brain functions become better or relational knowledge becomes deeper.<ref name=":2" />

Additionally, research has identified several factors that may increase the likelihood that a child may spontaneously engage in comparison and learn an abstract relationship, without the need for prompts.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last1=Gentner|first1=Dedre|last2=Hoyos|first2=Christian|date=2017|title=Analogy and Abstraction|journal=Topics in Cognitive Science|language=en|volume=9|issue=3|pages=672–693|doi=10.1111/tops.12278|pmid=28621480|issn=1756-8765|doi-access=free}}</ref> Comparison is more likely when the objects to be compared are close together in space and/or time,<ref name=":6" /> are highly similar (although not so similar that they match, which interfere with identifying relationships),<ref name=":2" /> or share common labels.