Dedre Gentner is a professor in the Department of Psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 at Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

. She is a prominent researcher in the study of analogical reasoning

Analogy

Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...

. Her work on structure-mapping theory was foundational for the development of the structure mapping engine

Structure Mapping Engine

In artificial intelligence and cognitive science, the structure mapping engine is an implementation in software of an algorithm for analogical matching based on the psychological theory of Dedre Gentner [1983]. The basis of Gentner's structure-mapping idea is that an analogy is a mapping of...

 by Ken Forbus

Ken Forbus

Ken Forbus is Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Education at Northwestern University. He is notable for his work in qualitative process theory, automated sketch understanding and on automated analogical reasoning. He developed the structure mapping engine based on the...

. She also coined the kind world hypothesis, claiming that superficial properties usually tell a lot about the structural features of the object: "If something looks like a tiger, it probably is a tiger".

Publications

The following are in-print books by Gentner; see her home page for further publications.

• The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science by Dedre Gentner (Editor), Keith J. Holyoak (Editor), Boicho Kokinov
  Boicho Kokinov
  Boicho Kokinov received his PhD at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. He is currently an Associate Professor in Cognitive Science and Computer Science at the New Bulgarian University and the Director of the Central and East European Center for Cognitive Science.He has been the main organizer...
  
   (Editor), ISBN 0-262-57139-0
• Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought, by Dedre Gentner (Editor), Susan Goldin-Meadow
  Susan Goldin-Meadow
  Susan Goldin-Meadow is Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. She is a pioneer and internationally renowned expert on the cognitive bases of gesture and sign language, and she is also interested in the educational applications of this research. ...
  
   (Editor), ISBN 0-262-57163-3
• Mental Models
  Mental Models (Gentner-Stevens book)
  Mental Models is a book published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., in 1983 ISBN 0-89859-242-9. It was edited by Dedre Gentner and Albert L. Stevens, both employees of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. at the time. It appeared at about the same time as a book by the same name by Philip...
  
   (Cognitive Science (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).), by Albert L. Stevens, Dedre Gentner, ISBN 0-89859-242-9
• Proceedings Thirteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
  Cognitive Science Society
  The Cognitive Science Society is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields who hold the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind...
  
  , by Cognitive Science Society, Kristian J. Hammond (Editor), Dedre Gentner (Editor), ISBN 0-8058-1138-9

External links

• Home page at NU