EFFECTS OF EMOTION-RELATED SURFACE SIMILARITY IN ANALOGICAL PROBLEM-SOLVING

In analogical problem solving, a source problem with a known solution is used to solve a target problem. The present study deals with one po ssible condition influencing the search for possible source problems ( i.e., with similarities between source and target problems in the emot ional connotation of the problem cover stories). Subjects were given s ix source problems-distracters as well as target-relevant problems-tha t were varied with respect to the emotional valence of the cover stori es. Then one group of subjects (n = 32) was given a pleasant target pr oblem, while the other group (n = 31) received an unpleasant target pr oblem. Except for emotional valence the two target problems were ident ical. Subjects preferred those target-relevant source problems that we re emotionally congruent with the target problem. The findings are int erpreted within network theories of long-term memory, introducing emot ional markers or emotion-concept nodes to represent the emotional conn otation of the represented units, By controlling subjects' mood change after reading the (un)pleasant target-problem cover story, it could b e ruled out that the observed results were due to a mood congruity eff ect of the type described by Bower (1981).