Keith James Holyoak (born January 16, 1950) is a Canadian–American researcher in cognitive psychology and cognitive science, working on human thinking and reasoning. Holyoak's work focuses on the role of analogy in thinking.[1] His work showed how analogy can be used to enhance learning of new abstract concepts by both children and adults,[2] as well as how reasoning breaks down in cases of brain damage.[3]
Holyoak is also a poet. He has published four collections of his own poems, My Minotaur, Foreigner, The Gospel According to Judas, and Oracle Bones, as well as a collection of translations of classical Chinese poetry by Li Bai and Du Fu, Facing the Moon.
Holyoak, K. J. (2019). The Spider’s Thread: Metaphor in Mind, Brain, and Poetry. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, ISBN978-0-26-203922-2.
Holland, J.H., Holyoak, K.J., Nisbett, R.E., & Thagard, P. (1986). Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, ISBN0-262-58096-9.
Holyoak, K.J., & Thagard, P. (1995). Mental Leaps: Analogy in Creative Thought. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, ISBN0-262-58144-2.
Gentner, D., Holyoak, K.J., & Kokinov, B. (Eds.) (2001). The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, ISBN0-262-57139-0
^Holland, J. H.; Holyoak, K. J.; Nisbett, R. E.; Thagard, P. R.; Smoliar, S. W. (1987). "Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery". IEEE Expert. 2 (3): 92–93. doi:10.1109/MEX.1987.4307100. ISSN0885-9000. S2CID1097618.