Mechanical and Psychological Domains of Thought are Analogically Asymmetrical

Psychology and physics are two core domains of human cognition. Little is known about their epistemic relation. Does our understanding of common physical-mechanical systems better inform our understanding of psychology, or vice versa? To answer this question, we compared analogies that explain one domain in terms of the other. In Study 1, we found the best analogies with a mechanical base explaining a psychological target were preferred to the best analogies in the opposite direction. In Study 2, we generated analogies from random pairings of mechanical and psychological systems and again found a preference for analogies with a mechanical base. In Study 3, participants overwhelmingly generated analogies with a mechanical (instead of psychological) base. And Study 4 showed that analogies with a mechanical base were also preferred to those with bases from other domains. These results suggest that the physical-mechanical domain may serve as a privileged launchpad for explanation.