Titles:
Director, Cognitive Science Program
Co P.I., Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center
Alice Gabrielle Twight Professor, Department of Psychology
Professor, School of Education and Social Policy

Contact Information:
Mailing Address:

Northwestern University
Department of Psychology
2029 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208

Office: 213 Swift Hall
Phone: (847) 467-2035
Fax: (847) 491-7859
Email: gentner@northwestern.edu

Current CV

Research Interests:
Learning and Thinking; Analogy, Similarity and Metaphor; Concepts and Conceptual Structure; Language and Cognition; Language Acquisition; Cross-linguistic Studies

Education
1962-1967 University of California, Berkeley. B. A. in Physics, Honors.
1967-1968 University of Chicago. Student in Social Sciences.
1970-1974 University of California, San Diego. Ph.D. in Psychology.

Present position Alice Gabrielle Twight Professor of Psychology and Education, Northwestern University.

Academic Positions
2007-present Alice Gabrielle Twight Professor of Psychology, Northwestern University
1990-2015 Cognitive Science Program Director, Northwestern University
1990-2007 Professor of Psychology, Cognitive Science Program Director, Northwestern University
1989-1990 Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
1984-1989 Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
1977-1982 Scientist, Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.
1974-1977 Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Washington.
1968-1970 Teacher, Achimota Preparatory School, Achimota, Ghana.

Fellowships and Honors
David E. Rumelhart Prize in Cognitive Science, 2016 (announced in 2015)
Governing Board, Cognitive Science Society, 1998-2004; 2015-2020
Member of the International Advisory Board of the VU University Amsterdam Metaphor Lab, 2012
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award, 2012
Journal of Cognition and Development's Editor's Choice Award for 2010
Scientific Advisory Board, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 2007-2012
Fellow, Rockefeller Institute, Bellagio, Italy, 2006
Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA., 1999-2000
President, Cognitive Science Society, 1993-1994
Society of Experimental Psychologists, 1999
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010
Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, 2004
Fellow of the American Psychology Association, 1995
Fellow of the American Psychological Society, 1995
Inaugural Fellow, Cognitive Science Society, 2003
Charter Fellow, Midwestern Psychology Association, 2010

Affiliations
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Fellow); American Psychological Association (Fellow); American Psychological Society (Fellow); Brain and Behavioral Sciences Associate; Cognitive Development Society; Cognitive Science Society (Fellow); Psychonomics Society; Society of Experimental Psychologists; Society for Research in Child Development

Top 35 Papers by Topic

The semantics of word classes and their effects on acquisition of language

• Gentner, D. (1982). Why nouns are learned before verbs: Linguistic relativity versus natural partitioning. In S. A. Kuczaj (Ed.), Language development: Vol. 2. Language, thought and culture (pp. 301-334). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Gentner, D., & Boroditsky, L. (2001). Individuation, relativity and early word learning. In M. Bowerman & S. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 215-256). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Gentner, D. (2005). The development of relational category knowledge. In L. Gershkoff-Stowe & D. H. Rakison, (Eds.), Building object categories in developmental time. (pp. 245-275). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Gentner, D. (2006). Why verbs are hard to learn. In K. Hirsh-Pasek, & R. Golinkoff, (Eds.) Action meets word: How children learn verbs (pp.544 564). Oxford University Press.

Analogy, similarity, metaphor and related topics

Structure-mapping theory and model

• Gentner, D. (1983). Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science, 7, 155-170.
• Falkenhainer, B., Forbus, K. D., & Gentner, D. (1989). The structure-mapping engine: Algorithm and examples. Artificial Intelligence, 41, 1-63.
• Clement, C., & Gentner, D. (1991). Systematicity as a selection constraint in analogical mapping. Cognitive Science, 15, 89-132.
• Gentner, D., & Markman, A. B. (1997). Structure mapping in analogy and similarity. American Psychologist, 52, 45-56. (Reprinted in Mind readings: Introductory selections on cognitive science, by P. Thagard, Ed., 1998, 127-156. MIT Press)

Structure-mapping in similarity: Similarity is like analogy

• Markman, A. B., & Gentner, D. (1993). Structural alignment during similarity comparisons. Cognitive Psychology, 25, 431-467.
• Markman, A. B., & Gentner, D. (1993). Splitting the differences: A structural alignment view of similarity. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 517-535.
• Medin, D. L., Goldstone, R. L., & Gentner, D. (1993). Respects for similarity. Psychological Review, 100, 254-278.
• Gentner, D., & Markman, A. B. (1994). Structural alignment in comparison: No difference without similarity. Psychological Science, 5, 152-158.
• Sagi, E., Gentner, D. & Lovett, A. (2012). What difference reveals about similarity. Cognitive Science, 36 (6). 1019-1050.

• Gentner, D., Rattermann, M. J., & Forbus, K. D. (1993). The roles of similarity in transfer: Separating retrieval from inferential soundness. Cognitive Psychology, 25, 524-575.
• Forbus, K. D., Gentner, D., & Law, K. (1995). MAC/FAC: A model of similarity-based retrieval. Cognitive Science, 19, 141-205.
• Gentner, D., Loewenstein, J., Thompson, L., & Forbus, K. (2009) Reviving inert knowledge: Analogical abstraction supports relational retrieval of past events. Cognitive Science, 3, 1343-1382.

• Bowdle, B., & Gentner, D. (2005). The career of metaphor. Psychological Review, 112, 193-216.
• Wolff, P., & Gentner, D. (2011). Structure-mapping in metaphor comprehension. Cognitive Science, 35. 1456-1448.

Comparison processes in learning and development

• Kotovsky, L., & Gentner, D. (1996). Comparison and categorization in the development of relational similarity. Child Development, 67, 2797-2822.
• Gentner, D., & Medina, J. (1998). Similarity and the development of rules. Cognition, 65, 263-297.
• Gentner, D., & Namy, L. (1999). Comparison in the development of categories. Cognitive Development, 14, 487-513.
• Christie, S. & Gentner, D. (2010). Where hypotheses come from: Learning new relations by structural alignment. Journal of Cognition and Development, 11 (3). 356-373. (Note: This paper was selected for the Journal of Cognition and Development's Editor's Choice Award for 2010)
• Gentner, D. (2010). Bootstrapping the mind: Analogical processes and symbol systems. Cognitive Science, 34 (5). 752-775.

Relational language supports relational cognition

• Gentner, D., & Rattermann, M. J. (1991). Language and the career of similarity. In S. A. Gelman & J. P. Byrnes (Eds.), Perspectives on thought and language: Interrelations in development (pp. 225-277). London: Cambridge University Press.
• Loewenstein, J., & Gentner, D. (2005). Relational language and the development of relational mapping. Cognitive Psychology, 50, 315-353.
• Gentner, D., Ozyurek, A., Gurcanli, O., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2013). Spatial language facilitates spatial cognition: Evidence from children who lack language input. Cognition, 127(3), 318-330.
• Christie, S. & Gentner, D. (2014). Language helps children succeed on a classic analogy task. Cognitive Science, 38. 383-397.
• Gentner, D. (2010). Bootstrapping the mind: Analogical processes and symbol systems. Cognitive Science, 34 (5). 752-775.

Analogical processes in history of science

• Gentner, D., & Jeziorski, M. (1993). The shift from metaphor to analogy in western science. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed., pp. 447-480). England: Cambridge University Press.
• Gentner, D., Brem, S., Ferguson, R. W., Markman, A. B., Levidow, B. B., Wolff, P., & Forbus, K. D. (1997). Analogical reasoning and conceptual change: A case study of Johannes Kepler. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6, 3-40.

Comparison processes in education

• Jee, B. D., Uttal, D. H., Gentner, D., Manduca, C., Shipley, T., Sageman, B., Ormand, C. J., & Tikoff, B. (2010). Analogical thinking in geoscience education. Journal of Geoscience Education, 58 (1), 2-13.
• Gentner, D., Levine, S. C., Dhillon, S., Ping, R., Bradley, C., Isaia, A., & Honke, G. (in press). Rapid learning in a children's museum via analogical comparison. To appear in Cognitive Science.

Mental models

• Gentner, D., & Gentner, D. R. (1983). Flowing waters or teeming crowds: Mental models of electricity. In D. Gentner & A. L. Stevens (Eds.), Mental models (pp. 99-129). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Gentner, D., & Grudin, J. (1985). The evolution of mental metaphors in psychology: A 90-year retrospective. American Psychologist, 40, 181-192.
• Rottman, B. M., Gentner, D. & Goldwater, M. B. (2012). Causal systems categories: Differences in novice and expert categorization of causal phenomena. Cognitive Science, 36 (5). 919-932.