This text is based on the premise that analogy-making is fundamentally a high-level perceptual process in which the interaction of perception and concepts gives rise to "conceptual slippages" which allow analogies to be made. It describes Copycat - a computer model of analogy-making.

In the spectrum of cognitive modeling approachers, Copycat occupies a unique intermediate position between symbolic systems and connectionist systems - a position that is at present the most useful one for understanding the fluidity of concepts and high-level perception. On one level the work described here is about analogy making, but on another level it is about cognition in general. It explores such issues as the nature of concepts and perception and the emergence of highly flexible concepts from a lower-level "subcognitive" substrate.