---
title: "Visual Analogy in Problem Solving"
authors:
  - "Jim Davies"
  - "Ashok K. Goel"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2001/53"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2001/0053.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 2001
pages: "377-383"
track: ""
keywords:
---

# Visual Analogy in Problem Solving

Jim Davies, Ashok K. Goel

*Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 377-383.

## Abstract

Computational models of analogical problem solving have traditionally described source and target domains in terms of their causal structure. But psychological research shows that visual reasoning plays a part for many kinds of analogies. This paper describes a model that transfers a solution from a source analog to a new target problem using only visual knowledge represented symbolically. The knowledge representation is based on a language of primitive visual elements and transformations. We found that visual knowledge is sufficient for transfer, but that causal knowledge is needed to determine if the transferred solution is appropriate.