# ARN: Analogical Reasoning on Narratives

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.00996 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.00996/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 25 of its 68 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Oct 2023.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-benchmarks-and-evaluation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10084/) (2019)
- [Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1301.3781/) (2013)
- [Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1310.4546/) (2013)
- [Scaling Instruction-Finetuned Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11416/) (2022)
- [Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.07682/) (2022)
- [UnifiedQA: Crossing Format Boundaries With a Single QA System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00700/) (2020)
- [A Corpus and Evaluation Framework for Deeper Understanding of Commonsense Stories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.01696/) (2016)
- [ChatIE: Zero-Shot Information Extraction via Chatting with ChatGPT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10205/) (2023)
- [Emergent Analogical Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09196/) (2022)
- [Abstraction and Analogy-Making in Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.10717/) (2021)
- [BERT is to NLP what AlexNet is to CV: Can Pre-Trained Language Models Identify Analogies?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.04949/) (2021)
- [General-Purpose Question-Answering with Macaw](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02593/) (2021)
- [Life is a Circus and We are the Clowns: Automatically Finding Analogies between Situations and Processes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.12197/) (2022)
- [Tiered Reasoning for Intuitive Physics: Toward Verifiable Commonsense Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04947/) (2021)
- [Probabilistic Analogical Mapping with Semantic Relation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16704/) (2021)
- [ePiC: Employing Proverbs in Context as a Benchmark for Abstract Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.06838/) (2021)
- [ANALOGICAL -- A Novel Benchmark for Long Text Analogy Evaluation in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05050/) (2023)
- [Understanding Narratives through Dimensions of Analogy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.07167/) (2022)
- [Scientific and Creative Analogies in Pretrained Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15268/) (2022)
- [WordRep: A Benchmark for Research on Learning Word Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1407.1640/) (2014)
- [On Reality and the Limits of Language Data: Aligning LLMs with Human Norms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.11981/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Reasoning on a Spectrum: Aligning LLMs to System 1 and System 2 Thinking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12470/) (2025)
- [LogiDynamics: Unraveling the Dynamics of Inductive, Abductive and Deductive Logical Inferences in LLM Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11176/) (2025)
- [DeFine: Decision-Making with Analogical Reasoning over Factor Profiles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01772/) (2024)
- [Modeling Understanding of Story-Based Analogies Using Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.10957/) (2025)
- [Aligning Generalisation Between Humans and Machines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15626/) (2024)
- [TrueReason: An Exemplar Personalised Learning System Integrating Reasoning with Foundational Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10411/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models Show Signs of Alignment with Human Neurocognition During Abstract Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.10057/) (2025)
- [Analogical Deep Research: Retrieving and Integrating Historical Analogies for Foresight Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.13602/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As a core cognitive skill that enables the transferability of information across domains, analogical reasoning has been extensively studied for both humans and computational models. However, while cognitive theories of analogy often focus on narratives and study the distinction between surface, relational, and system similarities, existing work in natural language processing has a narrower focus as far as relational analogies between word pairs. This gap brings a natural question: can state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs) detect system analogies between narratives? To gain insight into this question and extend word-based relational analogies to relational system analogies, we devise a comprehensive computational framework that operationalizes dominant theories of analogy, using narrative elements to create surface and system mappings. Leveraging the interplay between these mappings, we create a binary task and benchmark for Analogical Reasoning on Narratives (ARN), covering four categories of far (cross-domain)/near (within-domain) analogies and disanalogies. We show that while all LLMs can largely recognize near analogies, even the largest ones struggle with far analogies in a zero-shot setting, with GPT4.0 scoring below random. Guiding the models through solved examples and chain-of-thought reasoning enhances their analogical reasoning ability. Yet, since even in the few-shot setting, the best model only performs halfway between random and humans, ARN opens exciting directions for computational analogical reasoners.