No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
The Impact of Analogies on Creative Concept Generation: Lessons From an In Vivo Study in Engineering Design
Abstract
Research on innovation often highlights analogies from sources outside the current problem domain as a major source of novel concepts; however, the mechanisms underlying this relationship are not well understood. We analyzed the temporal interplay between far analogy use and creative concept generation in a professional design team's brainstorming conversations, investigating the hypothesis that far analogies lead directly to very novel concepts via large steps in conceptual spaces (jumps). Surprisingly, we found that concepts were more similar to their preceding concepts after far analogy use compared to baseline situations (i.e., without far analogy use). Yet far analogies increased the team's concept generation rate compared to baseline conditions. Overall, these results challenge the view that far analogies primarily lead to novel concepts via jumps in conceptual spaces and suggest alternative pathways from far analogies to novel concepts (e.g., iterative, deep exploration within a functional space).
... Although some of these were "overall-similar" (i.e., they shared both structural and superficial commonalities), there were also some purely relational remindings, especially when trying to develop new explanations. Naturalistic studies of teams of designers and scientists have also documented frequent use of analogies that show little superficial similarity between analogs (e.g., Chan & Schunn, 2015;Chan et al., 2011;Fu et al., 2013). ...
... For example, in Dunbar's (1999) research on microbiology laboratories, which showed 25% relational analogies , the participants were highly expert in their domains. Likewise, the groups studied by Schunn and colleagues were professionals from a range of designrelated disciplines (e.g., industrial design and mechanical engineering; Chan & Schunn, 2015;Chan et al., 2011;Christensen & Schunn, 2007;Fu et al., 2013). It is possible that the high rate of deep relational retrievals found in these studies resulted at least in part from the expertise of the participants. ...
... We view our findings as complementary to the findings of Ball, Ormerod, and Morley (2004) who showed how expert analogies during the design process are rooted in abstract principles, while novice analogies are based in cases. Future work should examine interactions between task goals and knowledge representation in spontaneous use of analogies (and see Chan & Schunn, 2015;Chan et al., 2011;and Fu et al., 2013). ...
There is a critical inconsistency in the literature on analogical retrieval. On the one hand, a vast set of laboratory studies has found that people often fail to retrieve past experiences that share deep relational commonalities, even when they would be useful for reasoning about a current problem. On the other hand, historical studies and naturalistic research show clear evidence of remindings based on deep relational commonalities. Here, we examine a possible explanation for this inconsistency—namely, that remindings based on relational principles increase as a function of expertise. To test this claim, we devised a simple analogy-generation task that can be administered across a wide range of expertise. We presented common events as the bases from which to generate analogies. Although the events themselves were unrelated to geoscience, we found that when the event was explainable in terms of a causal principle that is prominent in geoscience, expert geoscientists were likely to spontaneously produce analogies from geoscience that relied on the same principle. Further, for these examples, prompts to produce causal analogies increased their frequency among nonscientists and scientists from another domain, but not among expert geoscientists (whose spontaneous causal retrieval levels were already high). In contrast, when the example was best explained by a principle outside of geoscience, all groups required prompting to produce substantial numbers of analogies based on causal principles. Overall, this pattern suggests that the spontaneous use of causal principles is characteristic of experts. We suggest that expert scientists adopt habitual patterns of encoding according to the key relational principles in their domain, and that this contributes to their propensity to spontaneously retrieve relational matches. We discuss implications for the nature of expertise and for science instruction and assessment.
... In turn, such distance information may guide the search and retrieval of patent images as visual design stimuli for design-by-analogy. Meanwhile, according to design creativity theories [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][34][35][36][37], near stimuli are beneficial for effectiveness and quality of design ideation, and far stimuli give rise to idea novelty and chances for breakthrough innovation. The work presented in this paper, by focusing on patent images and automatic learning of their design vector presentations with a novel CNN architecture, provides a new way to identify and determine near-versus far visual stimuli. ...
... Engineering designers often reuse and transform previous technical knowledge and ideas into their new designs [1][2][3]. In particular, previous research on design-by-analogy has shown that designers can gain inspiration from stimuli from both the same and different domains as the design problem and generate ideas in varied quality, quantity, and novelty [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Among the different kinds of data sources for design stimuli, the patent database is probably the biggest digitized design repository. ...
... For instance, Chan et al. [62] observed that far-field stimuli led to new concepts of higher novelty but less quantity than near-field stimuli. In another study, Chan et al. [6] further observed that the most creative ideas are generated using near-field stimuli because of the easier perception and more obvious relevance to the original design problem. Srinivasan et al. [7] found that as the analogical distance increases, the novelty of newly generated concepts increases, but the quantity and quality decrease. ...
The patent database is often used by designers to search for inspirational stimuli for innovative design opportunities because of the large size, extensive variety and the massive quantity of design information contained in patent documents. Growing work on design-by-analogy has adopted various vectorization approaches for associating design documents. However, they only focused on text analysis and ignored visual information. Research in engineering design and cognitive psychology has shown that visual stimuli may benefit design-by-analogy. In this study, we focus on visual design stimuli and automatically derive the vector space and the design feature vectors representing design images. The automatic vectorization approach uses a novel convolutional neural network architecture named Dual-VGG aiming to accomplish two tasks: visual material type prediction and international patent classification (IPC) section-label predictions. The derived feature vectors that embed both visual characteristics and technology-related knowledge can be potentially utilized to guide the retrieval and use of near-field and far-field design stimuli according to their vector distances. We report the accuracy of the training tasks and also use a case study to demonstrate the advantages of design image retrievals based on our model.
... Analogies have been shown to be important throughout the design process to explain concepts, identify problems, and offer solutions (Christensen & Schunn, 2007). Scholars of design cognition and collaboration typically do not distinguish between the perspectives of those who send versus those who receive the analogies communicated in conversational practice, including subsequent influence on design processes and outcomes (e.g., Alipour, Faizi, Moradi, & Akrami, 2017;Ball & Christensen, 2009;Chan & Schunn, 2015). Despite the recognition of analogies as a means of communicating ideas between individuals in design teams and the importance of perception in a communication environment (Berlo, 1960), the perspective of the intended recipient of the analogy has not been incorporated into these contexts. ...
... Analogical communication refers to the explicit use of both the analogy source and target as a product of analogical reasoning, rather than simply sharing one or the other. Design researchers have generally studied analogical communication within design team meeting conversations, examining analogies and their emergence, type, and effects (Ball & Christensen, 2009;Chan & Schunn, 2015). Analogical communication is used in design teams to explain ideas as well as to identify and solve problems (Christensen & Schunn, 2007). ...
... Analogical communication is used in design teams to explain ideas as well as to identify and solve problems (Christensen & Schunn, 2007). The construct is often measured directly by counting analogies in conversations, which are 2 Design Studies Vol xxx No. xxx Month xxxx then coded according to various parameters such as the type of analogy (e.g., Chan & Schunn, 2015). ...
Analogies have been shown to play a key role in design collaboration. However, research has been largely limited to the analogy itself and how it is used, overlooking the impact of analogy from the recipients' perspective. This is a critical aspect, considering the imperfect information transfer between members in design teams. We address this gap by developing a measure of perceived analogical communication in teams, focusing on the interpretation of the use of analogy in internal design team communications. We test the resulting scale across 3 samples, totalling 252 multi-disciplinary teams with 1182 team members. Results show that the scale is an internally consistent, distinct construct, and holds predictive validity for relevant design team processes and outcomes.
... Relatively recently, a number of empirical studies have appeared that document the link between creative thinking attributes and analogical reasoning across contexts including naturalistic in vivo studies (Chan & Schunn, 2015), more controlled laboratory experiments (Dumas, 2018), as well as neurological investigations using brain imaging (Green et al., 2012a;Vartanian, 2011). In the current work, we take a related but distinct approach to studying the relation between creativity and analogical reasoning: through the recruitment of individuals who are trained to be experts at creative work (i.e., professional actors), individuals who are acclimating within a creative domain (i.e., undergraduate acting majors), and individuals who CREATIVE ANALOGIES 4 have not developed expertise in that domain (i.e., non-actors), we generally aim to understand the influence of creative expertise on analogical reasoning. ...
... The greater Sensitivity to analogies among the professional actors as compared to student actors did not reach significance, in either the baseline or the "be creative" conditions. This finding appears to converge in meaning with previous work that identified a greater capability in analogical reasoning as associated with expert-level innovation in the visual arts (Okada et al., 2009), medicine (Dumas et al., 2014), engineering (Chan et al., 2015) or the physical sciences (Gentner et al., 1997), among other domains. Therefore, the findings of this study strongly suggest that expertise in acting, as in other creatively demanding artistic or scientific domains, is linked to the greater ability to identify and map valid analogies. ...
This study compared the analogical reasoning of three groups that differed in their creative expertise: professional actors, undergraduate acting majors, and non-actors. Using an Analogy Finding Task, in which participants identified valid and non-valid verbal analogies, three aspects of participants’ analogical reasoning were measured: the number of analogies participants selected as valid (Quantity), the rate of true-positive analogical identification (Sensitivity), and the rate of true-negative identification of non-valid analogies (Selectivity). The Analogy Finding Task was administered under both a baseline and a “think creatively” prompt. Results showed that actors (professional or student) were significantly more Sensitive to valid analogies than non-actors, and these creative experts were significantly more influenced by the “think creatively” prompt, which increased the Quantity, and decreased the Selectivity, of actors’ analogical reasoning. To explain these results, we forward the general hypothesis that creative experts may be more flexible in response to creativity-relevant contextual cues than non-experts.
Keywords: Analogical reasoning; creativity; expertise; actors
... This anecdote demonstrates the effect of an analogy, particularly the effect of analogizing two objects with a different visual surface but the same structure. This superficial difference seems to promote novel ideas because it can change individuals' searching space for a certain problem (Chan & Schunn, 2015b). When discussing the type of exemplars that promote subsequent conducted an experiment to compare the effects of unfamiliar exemplars on creative product design. ...
... The results showed that the they also recalled their interpretation of the artwork to experience a dual focus. Viewers who had creative jobs or hobbies (e.g., painters, patentees, and designers) easily experienced inspiration to create through art viewing (e.g., Thrash and Elliot, 2003;Chan and Schunn, 2015b;Chan et al., 2015). which may inspire viewers' artistic creativity. ...
Professional and amateur artists seek inspiration from viewing the works of others to enhance their creativity. This paper focuses on inspiration for artistic creation through art viewing by reviewing psychology studies on what types of artwork promote individuals’ inspiration for creation (inspiring artwork) and how they experience inspiration through their art appreciation (the appreciation process). In particular, we claim that a dual focus—that is a focus on both evaluating the artworks of others and reflecting on one's own art making—is a core mechanism for inspiration. Further, we present a theoretical framework to explain the types of creative outcomes expected in line with such a dual focus.
... Inoltre, gli studi sulla creatività e sulle personalità creative includono oggi non solo artisti, poeti e romanzieri (Patrick 1937;Doyle 1998), ma anche inventori e scienziati (Chan -Schunn 2015;Hadamard 1945;Weber e Perkins 1992), senza dimenticare le personalità multi-creative che sono sia artistiche che scientifiche, come è il caso qui trattato. ...
Quest'articolo esplora come il legame fra antropologia e poesia sia stato incarnato da una coppia multicreativa di scienziati e artisti polacchi, Bronisław Malinowski e Sta-nislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. In primo luogo occorre precisare che tale saggio s'inserisce nella continuazione di studi scientifici che ho prodotto sui rapporti-spesso occultati (Dragani 2005) anche se più evidenti nella tradizione americana (Dragani 2015)-che l'antropologia intrat-tiene con la poesia dai suoi esordi. Imperniate sullo studio delle pratiche poetiche delle antropologhe e degli antropologi (Dragani 2013, 2018; Dragani e alii 2018), tali ricerche esplorano le relazioni intellettuali che si sono sviluppate fra loro. Nelle diverse tradizioni nazionali della disciplina, è possibile individuare quelli che chiamo « poeti antropologi », ovvero, per usare una definizione ampia, antropologi riconos-ciuti o affermati in campo scientifico, che hanno sviluppato una scrittura poetica pri-ma, dopo o durante la carriera scientifica. Il legame tra antropologia e poesia si trova inscritto e, per così dire, incarnato nelle biografie di antropologi e antropologhe che hanno pubblicato o scritto poesie. Per quanto figure di scienziate et scienziati che si dedicano a una forma di « multi-creati-vità » tanto scientifica che artistica siano numerose nei vari campi disciplinari-dalla Società degli entomologi poeti della via Serpente a Parigi alla poesia del sociologo Luc Boltanski-è in antropologia che sembrano essere particolarmente frequenti (Dragani 2018). Oltre ai profili di « poeti antropologi » esistono anche antropologi che hanno affiancato alla pratica scientifica e poetica anche un'altra attività artistica,
... In the first case the information comes from the external world; in the second it is generated internally. Indeed there is increasing recognition of the extent to which creative outcomes are contingent upon internally driven incremental/iterative processing (Basadur, 1995;Chan & Schunn, 2015;Feinstein, 2006). ...
Although creativity is encouraged in the abstract it is often discouraged in educational and workplace settings. Using an agent-based model of cultural evolution, we investigated the idea that tempering the novelty-generating effects of creativity with the novelty-preserving effects of imitation is beneficial for society. In Experiment One we systematically introduced individual differences in creativity, and observed a trade-off between the ratio of creators to imitators, and how creative the creators were. Excess creativity was detrimental because creators invested in unproven ideas at the expense of propagating proven ones. Experiment Two tested the hypothesis that society as a whole benefits if individuals adjust how creative they are in accordance with their creative success. When effective creators created more, and ineffective creators created less (social regulation), the agents segregated into creators and imitators, and the mean fitness of outputs was temporarily higher. We hypothesized that the temporary nature of the effect was due to a ceiling on output fitness. In Experiment Three we made the space of possible outputs open-ended by giving agents the capacity to chain simple outputs into arbitrarily complex ones such that fitter outputs were always possible. With the capacity for chained outputs, the effect of social regulation could indeed be maintained indefinitely. The results are discussed in light of empirical data.
... By analyzing data patterns and gaining insights, we can make informed decisions and find solutions to problems. Starting with an inclusive ideation phase and generating numerous creative ideas [32] can help identify effective solutions. However, as research [33] addressed, design outcomes may still need a relationship between visual and semantic information to convey their functionality. ...
Ideation is the process by which ideas are populated by exploring visuals and semantics as essential stimuli when dealing with creative problem-solving. Knowledge of such activity often desires frequent changes in user goals and insights. A common technique that utilizes pre-designed contents with semantic-visual concepts for ideation raises uncertainty in informatics. This adaptive workflow supports the exploration of many text descriptions and image previews from software products and service design templates. With three steps: 1) Extract and summarize semantic-visual features from design contents. 2) Use clusters of adapted information for multi-label classification. 3) Construct a design exploration model with visualization and exploration. This study has provided a glanceable workflow of ideation. Hence, engineering of the design knowledge supports semantic and visual hints for emerging pathways of continuous ideation and design exploration.
... Some researchers have argued that between-domain sources facilitate innovation in design solutions (Gick & Holyoak, 1980;Linsey et al., 2012;Lu et al. 2023). In contrast, some scholars argued that near-domain sources are more beneficial to analogical innovation (Chan, 2014;Goldschmidt, 2011). ...
... Noticing for oneself that lightning tends to be followed by thunder is an example of individual learning. In contrast, in abstract thought-the processing of internally sourced mental contents-the information is in flux (Barsalou 2005), and when this incremental honing process results in the generation of new and useful or pleasing ideas, behaviour, or artifacts, it is said to be creative (Basadur 1995;Chan and Schunn 2015a;Feinstein 2006;Gabora 2017). Distinguishing between individual learning and creative thought enables us to monitor at what point in a cultural lineage each new idea (or idea component) first arose, assess the relative contribution of these different sources on the emerging conceptual networks of individuals and social groups, and track cumulative change step by step. ...
This chapter focuses on the role and value of not knowing for creativity, learning and development. More specifically, it proposes a typology of states that are conducive, in different ways, for creative learning, including certain knowing, uncertain not knowing, uncertain knowing, and certain not knowing. They are discussed, in turn, in relation to four associated experiences: trust, anxiety, curiosity and wonder, respectively. Towards the end, two models are proposed that specify how and when these experiences contribute to the process of creative learning. The first is focused on macro stages, the second on micro processes. While the former starts from uncertain not knowing, goes through the interplay between uncertain knowing and certain not knowing, and ends in certain knowledge, the processual model reveals the intricate relations between these experiences in each and every instance of creative learning. The developmental and educational implications of revaluing not knowing as a generate state are discussed in the end.KeywordsUncertaintyKnowledgeAnxietyTrustCuriosityWonderCreative learning
... For example, one wants to be able to generate enough ideas to hit on the root of a successful model but also winnow enough to avoid being swamped by too many models or ending with a faulty one. Chan and Schunn (2015a) provide an informative review of various approaches to sequencing divergent and convergent processes, including: the use of divergent processes early, then convergent processes later (e.g., Amabile, 1983;Finke et al., 1996); multiple divergent/convergent cycles (e.g., Jin and Chusilp, 2006;Herring et al., 2009); or cycles with increasing degrees of convergence later (e.g., Goel and Pirolli, 1992;Ball et al., 1997;Clement, 2008;Nersessian, 2008;Chan and Schunn, 2015b). ...
Science historians have recognized the importance of heuristic reasoning strategies for constructing theories, but their extent and degree of organization are still poorly understood. This paper first consolidates a set of important heuristic strategies for constructing scientific models from three books, including studies in the history of genetics and electromagnetism, and an expert think-aloud study in the field of mechanics. The books focus on qualitative reasoning strategies (processes) involved in creative model construction, scientific breakthroughs, and conceptual change. Twenty four processes are examined, most of which are field-general, but all are heuristic in not being guaranteed to work. An organizing framework is then proposed as a four-level hierarchy of nested reasoning processes and subprocesses at different size and time scales, including: Level (L4) Several longer-time-scale Major Modeling Modes, such as Model Evolution and Model Competition; the former mode utilizes: (L3) Modeling Cycle Phases of Model Generation, Evaluation, and Modification under Constraints; which can utilize: (L2) Thirteen Tactical Heuristic Processes, e.g., Analogy, Infer new model feature (e.g., by running the model), etc.; many of which selectively utilize: (L1) Grounded Imagistic Processes, namely Mental Simulations and Structural Transformations. Incomplete serial ordering in the framework gives it an intermediate degree of organization that is neither anarchistic nor fully algorithmic. Its organizational structure is hypothesized to promote a difficult balance between divergent and convergent processes as it alternates between them in modeling cycles with increasingly constrained modifications. Videotaped think-aloud protocols that include depictive gestures and other imagery indicators indicate that the processes in L1 above can be imagistic. From neurological evidence that imagery uses many of the same brain regions as actual perception and action, it is argued that these expert reasoning processes are grounded in the sense of utilizing the perceptual and motor systems, and interconnections to and possible benefits for reasoning processes at higher levels are examined. The discussion examines whether this grounding and the various forms of organization in the framework may begin to explain how processes that are only sometimes useful and not guaranteed to work can combine successfully to achieve innovative scientific model construction.
... Such analogical metaphors call attention to important connections between dissimilar concepts so as to highlight core similarities in a creative way. Analogy plays an important role in many creative human activities, including scientific discovery (Dunbar & Klahr, 2012), engineering design (Chan & Schunn, 2015), mathematics education (Richland et al., 2007), and metaphor comprehension (Holyoak, 2019;Holyoak & Stamenković, 2018). For reviews of relational processing in humans, see Gentner (2010), Halford et al. (2010), and Holyoak (2012); and for a review of its neural substrate see Holyoak and Monti (2021). ...
The human ability to flexibly reason using analogies with domain-general content depends on mechanisms for identifying relations between concepts, and for mapping concepts and their relations across analogs. Building on a recent model of how semantic relations can be learned from nonrelational word embeddings, we present a new computational model of mapping between two analogs. The model adopts a Bayesian framework for probabilistic graph matching, operating on semantic relation networks constructed from distributed representations of individual concepts and of relations between concepts. Through comparisons of model predictions with human performance in a novel mapping task requiring integration of multiple relations, as well as in several classic studies, we demonstrate that the model accounts for a broad range of phenomena involving analogical mapping by both adults and children. We also show the potential for extending the model to deal with analog retrieval. Our approach demonstrates that human-like analogical mapping can emerge from comparison mechanisms applied to rich semantic representations of individual concepts and relations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... Assessing creativity through the ability to think divergently strictly separates it from an intelligence test, which usually requires a person to converge on a specific answer that is supposedly the only correct solution to a question or problem (Guilford, 1956(Guilford, , 1968Wallach & Kogan, 1965). However, despite the huge differences between their test formats, recent studies have reported findings that indicate that divergent and convergent thinking have some shared components (Chan & Schunn, 2015;Cortes et al., 2019). Benedek et al. (2014) explained the correlation of the two constructs through the common involvement of similar executive functions (i.e., updating, shifting, and inhibition abilities). ...
Based on the divergent thinking (DT) framework of creativity assessment, this study constructed the Computerized Creativity Assessment with Figure Test (C-CRAFT) that is equipped with an automated scoring system and built around a deep-learning-based semantic space model called Word2Vec. A subject pool of 493 undergraduates completed the C-CRAFT as well as a conventional paper-and-pencil DT test that required manual scoring. We found moderately high to high coefficients for the correlations between the two tests, which suggested that the C-CRAFT has strong criterion-related validity. The results of the pre- and posttests also demonstrated the high test–retest reliability of the C-CRAFT. Good discriminant validity was evidenced by highly significant differences in the C-CRAFT scores between college students from art and design-related fields and students from other majors. These research findings indicate that the C-CRAFT is a valid and reliable assessment tool for DT, while the automated nature of the C-CRAFT makes it easier to implement the DT test compared with traditional approaches. Moreover, by applying the C-CRAFT to the Chinese language, this study contributes to the cross-linguistic research of semantic models in creativity assessment.
... Noticing for oneself that lightning tends to be followed by thunder is an example of individual learning. In contrast, in abstract thoughtthe processing of internally sourced mental contents-the information is in flux (Barsalou, 2005), and when this incremental honing process results in the generation of new and useful or pleasing ideas, behavior, or artifacts, it is said to be creative (Basadur, 1995;Feinstein, 2006;Chan and Schunn, 2015a;Gabora, 2017). An example of abstract thought is insight through concept combination, such as by fusing the concept of TIRE with the concept of SWING to yield the idea of making a swing from a tire. ...
This paper uses autocatalytic networks to model discontinuous cultural transitions involving cross-domain transfer, using as an illustrative example, artworks inspired by the oldest-known uncontested example of figurative art: the carving of the Hohlenstein-Stadel Löwenmensch, or lion-human. Autocatalytic networks provide a general modeling setting in which nodes are not just passive transmitters of activation; they actively galvanize, or “catalyze” the synthesis of novel (“foodset-derived”) nodes from existing ones (the “foodset.”) This makes them uniquely suited to model how new structure grows out of earlier structure, i.e., cumulative, generative network growth. They have been used to model the origin and early evolution of biological life, and the emergence of cognitive structures capable of undergoing cultural evolution. We conducted a study in which six individual creators and one group generated music, prose, poetry, and visual art inspired by the Hohlenstein-Stadel Löwenmensch, and answered questions about the process. The data revealed four through-lines by which they expressed the Löwenmensch in an alternative art form: (1) lion-human hybrid, (2) subtracting from the whole to reveal the form within, (3) deterioration, and (4) waiting to be found with a story to tell. Autocatalytic networks were used to model how these four spontaneously derived through-lines form a cultural lineage from Löwenmensch to artist to audience. We used the resulting data from three creators to model the cross-domain transfer from inspirational source (sculpted figurine) to creative product (music, poetry, prose, visual art). These four spontaneously-generated threads of cultural continuity formed the backbone of this Löwenmensch-inspired cultural lineage, enabling culture to evolve even in the face of discontinuity at the level conventional categories or domains. We know of no other theory of cultural evolution that accommodates cross-domain transfer or other forms of discontinuity. The approach paves the way for a broad scientific framework for the origins of evolutionary processes.
... More specifically, other research claims the better sources for novelty, quality, and flexibility of ideation should be conceptually far from the target sources (Dahl, D. and Moreau, P. 2002;Chan, Fu, Schunn, Cagan, Wood & Kotovsky, 2011;Chiu & Shu, 2012). In contrast, some studies find there are no obvious benefits from conceptually far source for creative thinking (Fu, Chan, Cagan, Kotovsky, Schunn & Wood, 2013;Chan & Schunn, 2014;Dunbar, 1997) or the effects of far and near sources have equal advantages (Malaga, 2000). ...
... As an effective tactic for supporting design creativity (e.g., Chan and Schunn, 2014), analogising involves accessing and transferring previously acquired knowledge of objects, attributes and relations in order to support current problem-solving and decision-making (e.g., Gentner, 1983 ...
Engineering designers seek to explore ‘real’ problems that must be solved across design processes. This exploration might be challenging in complex problem situations. An effective way of encouraging design exploration is conjecture-based problem exploration—informing problem re-interpretation by potential solutions. However, little evidence indicated how this process unfolds, especially in complex problem situations. This study addresses this question by articulating the underlying cognitive mechanism of conjecture-based problem exploration. Situated in a creative design practice that tackles real-world, complex problem situations, we employ grounded theory to conduct qualitative coding of interview transcripts and documents elicited from ten multidisciplinary graduate students. We developed a three-phase process model to explain conjecture-based problem exploration: (1) triggering through analogizing, inspiring, evaluating, and questioning; (2) transitioning to problem space expansion; and (3) resulting in problem focus adjustment incrementally or radically. Our explanation contributes to design theory building and encourages engineering designers to embrace a dynamic view of design problems when addressing complexity.
... Between-domain and within-domain analogical stimuli affect the design quality differently. Studies suggest that within-domain sources will allow designers to achieve better design performance (Howard et al., 2011;Chan and Schunn, 2014). However, some studies observed negative effects of within-domain sources and recommended using between-domain sources (Christensen and Schunn, 2007). ...
Studies reported the effects of different types and different levels of abstraction of analogical stimuli on designers. However, specific, single visual analogical stimuli on the effects of designers have not been reported. We define this type of stimuli as specific analogical stimuli. We used the extended linkography method to analyze the facilitating and limiting effects of specific analogical stimuli and free association analogical stimuli (nonspecific analogical stimuli) on the students' creativity at different design levels. The results showed that: (1) Advanced students focused on exploring the depth of the design problem while beginning students tended to explore the breadth of the design problem. (2) Nonspecific analogical stimuli enhanced the creativity of beginning students. However, its impact on advanced students is less pronounced. (3) The specific analogical stimuli attract the students into design fixation. Furthermore, it has a more pronounced effect on advanced students. These results illustrate the differences in the effects of specific analogy stimuli on the students at different design levels. It clarifies the use of analogical stimuli in design and the teaching of analogical design methods in design education.
... To summarize, the process of building robotic models can be characterized by a constant search and movement back and forth between generative and explorative thinking (Figure 3). The creation of a robotic model involves using generative strategies, like memory retrieval (Sullivan, 2011), brainstorming (Nemiro et al., 2017), mental synthesis, and analogical transfer (Barak and Zadok, 2009;Cuperman and Verner, 2013), as well as explorative strategies-attribute finding, conceptual interpretation (Barak and Zadok, 2009;Chan and Schunn, 2015), and utilizing the environmental affordances (Sullivan, 2011). As our analysis suggests, the search for a solution in a robot construction process involves not only switching between generative and explorative strategies but also switching between levels of thinking at which these strategies operate. ...
There is a growing literature concerning robotics and creativity. Although some authors claim that robotics in classrooms may be a promising new tool to address the creativity crisis in school, we often face a lack of theoretical development of the concept of creativity and the mechanisms involved. In this article, we will first provide an overview of existing research using educational robotics to foster creativity. We show that in this line of work the exact mechanisms promoted by robotics activities are rarely discussed. We use a confluence model of creativity to account for the positive effect of designing and coding robots on students' creative output. We focus on the cognitive components of the process of constructing and programming robots within the context of existing models of creative cognition. We address as well the question of the role of meta-reasoning and emergent strategies in the creative process. Then, in the second part of the article, we discuss how the notion of creativity applies to robots themselves in terms of the creative processes that can be embodied in these artificial agents. Ultimately, we argue that considering how robots and humans deal with novelty and solve open-ended tasks could help us to understand better some aspects of the essence of creativity.
... This knowledge base also allowed analogical reasoning. The importance of analogies in the creative process has also been described in other research (e.g., Chan & Schunn, 2015;Chen, 2002) and in case studies on creativity. ...
Steps involved in the creative process have been described in previous research, yet the exact nature of the process still remains unclear. In the current study, we take this investigation further, referring to two flying machines developed by Leonardo da Vinci and his other notes. Nine iterative steps are described with a focus on motivation and cognition: (a) vision and curiosity; (b) social recognition; (c) asking questions; (d) analogical thinking; (e) trial and error; (f) abductive reasoning; (g) incubation and forgetting; (h) overinclusive thinking, latent inhibition, and illumination; and (i) schema elaboration. The influence of da Vinci’s socio-historic context is also briefly discussed. The analyses show how general psychological mechanisms can explain extraordinary acts of creativity. The steps discussed can be further formalized in future research to advance the modeling of creativity.
... Instead of prompting with only one phrase, prompting with multiple related terms can help ideators to better understand the concept being prompted and generate higher quality ideas [17,67,83]. We extend the phrase selection method to group multiple phrases in a single prompt using the following greedy algorithm. ...
Crowdsourcing can collect many diverse ideas by prompting ideators individually, but this can generate redundant ideas. Prior methods reduce redundancy by presenting peers' ideas or peer-proposed prompts, but these require much human coordination. We introduce Directed Diversity, an automatic prompt selection approach that leverages language model embedding distances to maximize diversity. Ideators can be directed towards diverse prompts and away from prior ideas, thus improving their collective creativity. Since there are diverse metrics of diversity, we present a Diversity Prompting Evaluation Framework consolidating metrics from several research disciplines to analyze along the ideation chain - prompt selection, prompt creativity, prompt-ideation mediation, and ideation creativity. Using this framework, we evaluated Directed Diversity in a series of a simulation study and four user studies for the use case of crowdsourcing motivational messages to encourage physical activity. We show that automated diverse prompting can variously improve collective creativity across many nuanced metrics of diversity.
... Fixation on what is already known can limit the quality of the final design concept as the researcher is not motivated to investigate the most effective methods for dealing with unfamiliar examples (Ngo, 2014). According to the literature there is evidence that functional modelling has been useful for identifying design solutions and accordingly implementing them into a new design process (Casakin & Goldschmidt, 1999;Ball et al., 2004;Christensen & Schunn, 2007;Chan & Schunn, 2015). ...
Design inspired by nature has been known as biomimicry or biomimetic design that is believed to transform human technologies into a sustainable status through translation of biological models, systems, and processes. Considering energy efficiency as one of the aspects of sustainability in the concept of bio-inspired building design, the problem was how to access the solutions best matched to the design problem. Various tools for finding existing knowledge from a different domain are described but as yet there appears to be no tool for allowing building designers to access the efficient ways found in nature of producing energy, using energy, and recycling resources. What the research investigated was to find if it is possible to develop a generalised thermo-bio-architectural (ThBA) framework by use of which architects would be able to improve the energy performance of buildings in a wide range of climates, by following a systematic process that methodically connects design thermal challenges to thermal adaptation principles used in nature. The ThBA was developed by studying biology to find how thermal regulation strategies used by living organisms can be classified and generalised. The proposed ThBA was confirmed and evaluated before it was used for the rest of the research. The biological part of the ThBA was assessed by biological experts within a focus group session. Having the ThBA confirmed, the research also investigated how the heat transfer principles in buildings can be articulated to be linked to the generalised thermal adaptation strategies in nature. For this, a series of case studies were selected and for each an energy simulation was run to analyse its thermal performance and identify its thermal challenges. Then, the ThBA was used to introduce innovative solutions for improving the thermal performance of the case studies with big energy use to reveal unexpected techniques or technologies. This, however, necessitated its reconfiguration so as to be useful for architects. Testing the ThBA for two extreme climates in New Zealand, highlighted the fact that the simple translation of the majority of biological thermal adaptation principles are being used by architects, although for some, the architectural equivalents did not function in exactly in the same way as biological thermoregulation strategies. The differences were seen either in the central thermoregulatory principles or the broader properties within which the key principles fitted. Apart from that, for both architectural and biological thermoregulatory strategies the heat transfer parameter and methods were the same. Given that, in a context where biomimicry is understood as the imitation of complicated thermoregulatory solutions in nature for which innovation is evolutionary achieved, the term biomimetics seems to not have a place in the context of bio-inspired energy efficient design considering the current state of technology. The ThBA, however, suggested a few strategies that might address opportunities for designing a new generation of buildings in the future. This implies that the ThBA is more useful for researchers than architects.
... On the other hand, seeing high quality, inspirational ideas allows individuals to come up with more diverse and creative ideas, improving overall productivity [64,73]. Examples [18,56,75], parallel ideation [26], and exploration of variations have all been shown to produce higher quality and more novel ideas [63,71]. On the other hand, a poor selection of examples can result in distractions [64] and fixation [45,51], harming the ideation process. ...
In many instances of online collaboration, ideation and deliberation about what to write happen separately from the synthesis of the deliberation into a cohesive document. However, this may result in a final document that has little connection to the discussion that came before. In this work, we present interleaved discussion and summarization, a process where discussion and summarization are woven together in a single space, and collaborators can switch back and forth between discussing ideas and summarizing discussion until it results in a final document that incorporates and references all discussion points. We implement this process into a tool called Wikum+ that allows groups working together on a project to create living summaries-artifacts that can grow as new collaborators, ideas, and feedback arise and shrink as collaborators come to consensus. We conducted studies where groups of six people each collaboratively wrote a proposal using Wikum+ and a proposal using a messaging platform along with Google Docs. We found that Wikum+'s integration of discussion and summarization helped users be more organized, allowing for light-weight coordination and iterative improvements throughout the collaboration process. A second study demonstrated that in larger groups, Wikum+ is more inclusive of all participants and more comprehensive in the final document compared to traditional tools.
... Going into a forest and learning for oneself to distinguish different kinds of insects is an example of individual learning. In contrast, in abstract thought (reiterative processing of internally sourced mental contents), the information is in flux (Barsalou, 2005), and when this incremental honing process results in the generation of new and useful or pleasing ideas, behavior, or artifacts, it is said to be creative (Basadur, 1995;Chan & Schunn, 2015;Feinstein, 2006;Gabora, 2017). ...
Autocatalytic networks have been used to model the emergence of self-organizing structure capable of sustaining life and undergoing biological evolution. Here, we model the emergence of cognitive structure capable of undergoing cultural evolution. Mental representations (MRs) of knowledge and experiences play the role of catalytic molecules, and interactions among them (e.g., the forging of new associations) play the role of reactions and result in representational redescription. The approach tags MRs with their source, that is, whether they were acquired through social learning, individual learning (of pre-existing information), or creative thought (resulting in the generation of new information). This makes it possible to model how cognitive structure emerges and to trace lineages of cumulative culture step by step. We develop a formal representation of the cultural transition from Oldowan to Acheulean tool technology using Reflexively Autocatalytic and Food set generated (RAF) networks. Unlike more primitive Oldowan stone tools, the Acheulean hand axe required not only the capacity to envision and bring into being something that did not yet exist, but hierarchically structured thought and action, and the generation of new MRs: the concepts EDGING, THINNING, SHAPING, and a meta-concept, HAND AXE. We show how this constituted a key transition toward the emergence of semantic networks that were self-organizing, self-sustaining, and autocatalytic, and we discuss how such networks replicated through social interaction. The model provides a promising approach to unraveling one of the greatest anthropological mysteries: that of why development of the Acheulean hand axe was followed by over a million years of cultural stasis.
... Because relations provide basic building blocks for language and thought, they are central for a range of cognitive tasks. A prime example is the critical role of relation representations in analogical reasoning (Holyoak, 2012), a mental process that impacts human activities as diverse as metaphor comprehension (Holyoak, 2019), mathematics education (Richland, Zur, & Holyoak, 2007), scientific discovery (Dunbar & Klahr, 2012), and engineering design (Chan & Schunn, 2015). However, although the importance of relations is widely recognized, no consensus has emerged regarding the form of relation representations in the mind and brain. ...
The ability to generate and process semantic relations is central to many aspects of human cognition. Theorists have long debated whether such relations are coarsely coded as links in a semantic network or finely coded as distributed patterns over some core set of abstract relations. The form and content of the conceptual and neural representations of semantic relations are yet to be empirically established. Using sequential presentation of verbal analogies, we compared neural activities in making analogy judgments with predictions derived from alternative computational models of relational dissimilarity to adjudicate among rival accounts of how semantic relations are coded and compared in the brain. We found that a frontoparietal network encodes the three relation types included in the design. A computational model based on semantic relations coded as distributed representations over a pool of abstract relations predicted neural activities for individual relations within the left superior parietal cortex and for second-order comparisons of relations within a broader left-lateralized network.
... We note that the model proposed in this paper does not rely on a precise timeline for language origins. abstract thought (reiterative processing of internally sourced mental contents), the information is in flux (Barsalou, 2005), and when this incremental honing process results in the generation of new and useful or pleasing ideas, behavior, or artifacts, it is said to be creative (Basadur, 1995;Chan & Schunn, 2015;Feinstein, 2006;Gabora, 2017). ...
Autocatalytic networks have been used to model the emergence of self-organizing structure capable of sustaining life and undergoing biological evolution. Here, we model the emergence of cognitive structure capable of undergoing cultural evolution. Mental representations of knowledge and experiences play the role of catalytic molecules, and interactions amongst them (e.g., the forging of new associations) play the role of reactions, and result in representational redescription. The approach tags mental representations with their source, i.e., whether they were acquired through social learning, individual learning (of pre-existing information), or creative thought (resulting in the generation of new information). This makes it possible to model how cognitive structure emerges, and to trace lineages of cumulative culture step by step. We develop a formal representation of the cultural transition from Oldowan to Acheulean tool technology using Reflexively Autocatalytifc and Food set generated (RAF) networks. Unlike more primitive Oldowan stone tools, the Acheulean hand axe required not only the capacity to envision and bring into being something that did not yet exist, but hierarchically structured thought and action, and the generation of new mental representations: the concepts EDGING, THINNING, SHAPING, and a meta-concept, HAND AXE. We show how this constituted a key transition towards the emergence of semantic networks that were self-organizing, self-sustaining, and autocatalytic, and discuss how such networks replicated through social interaction. The model provides a promising approach to unraveling one of the greatest anthropological mysteries: that of why development of the Acheulean hand axe was followed by over a million years of cultural stasis.
... Preschool children can already use simple analogies to solve problems (Brown, Kane & Echols, 1986;Holyoak, Junn & Billman, 1984); however, the ability continues to develop over childhood (e.g., Gentner & Toupin, 1986;Goswami, 1989), and is linked to improvements in executive functions (Richland & Burchinal, 2012) and to maturation of the prefrontal cortex (Knowlton, Morrison, Hummel & Holyoak, 2012). For adults, advanced analogical reasoning impacts a broad range of human endeavours, including mathematics education (Richland, Zur & Holyoak, 2008), engineering design (Chan & Schunn, 2015) and scientific discovery (Dunbar, 1995). Analogies are also ubiquitous in discourse, and can be used for various communicative purposes, such as to subtly express opinions or convey humour. ...
Analogical reasoning—the ability to find and exploit similarities based on relations among entities, rather than solely on the entities themselves—is a key mechanism underlying human intelligence and creativity (Gentner, 2010; Halford, Wilson & Phillips, 2010; Holyoak, 2012). Among the species currently extant, the ability to formulate explicit relations and reason about them may be unique to homo sapiens (Penn, Holyoak & Povinelli, 2008). Preschool children can already use simple analogies to solve problems (Brown, Kane & Echols, 1986; Holyoak, Junn & Billman, 1984); however, the ability continues to develop over childhood (e.g., Gentner & Toupin, 1986; Goswami, 1989), and is linked to improvements in executive functions (Richland & Burchinal, 2012) and to maturation of the prefrontal cortex (Knowlton, Morrison, Hummel & Holyoak, 2012). For adults, advanced analogical reasoning impacts a broad range of human endeavours, including mathematics education (Richland, Zur & Holyoak, 2008), engineering design (Chan & Schunn, 2015) and scientific discovery (Dunbar, 1995). Analogies are also ubiquitous in discourse, and can be used for various communicative purposes, such as to subtly express opinions or convey humour. Here is an example from Nasreddin, a Turkish philosopher of the 13th century: “Knowledge is like the carrot, few know by looking at the green top that the best part, the orange part, is there. Like the carrot, if you don't work for it, it will wither away and rot. And finally, like the carrot, there are a great many donkeys and jackasses that are associated with it.”
Broadly speaking, reasoning by analogy involves finding coherent correspondences between disparate situations, focusing on relations between objects rather than specific features of individual objects (for an overview see Holyoak & Thagard, 1995). Analogy seems to both require and promote cognitive flexibility, enabling transfer of knowledge and procedures between different contexts to solve novel problems (e.g., Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1983). Furthermore, it has been argued that development of relational reasoning is closely linked to language, especially the acquisition of relational vocabulary (e.g., Gentner & Rattermann, 1991). Given these general characteristics, one might well expect to observe deficits in analogical reasoning among people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who are often characterized as lacking in cognitive flexibility, oriented toward detailed perceptual features, weak in central coherence, and impaired in language processing, including metaphor comprehension (e.g., Frith, 2003; Kalandadze, Norbury, Nærland & Næss, 2018; Pellicano, Maybery, Durkin, & Maley, 2006). It is therefore surprising that some empirical findings (e.g., Scott & Baron-Cohen, 1996; Dawson, Soulières, Gernsbacher, & Mottron, 2007) indicate that analogical reasoning may actually be spared in autism, or even constitute an area of relative cognitive strength.
If analogical reasoning is indeed spared in ASD despite apparent deficits in cognitive processes that have often been linked to this type of reasoning, then it may be useful to reconsider conceptions of the role played by analogy in normal cognitive development. ASD is characterized by a wide range of deficits in social communication (Jones et al., 2014). The status of analogical reasoning in individuals affected by ASD therefore has potential implications for design of interventions to compensate for deficits in social understanding associated with ASD. For individuals with ASD, spared analogical ability could provide a basis for therapeutic interventions (Green et al., 2017; McGregor, Whiten & Blackburn, 1998; Swettenham, 1996).
By performing a systematic literature review and meta-analysis, the present study examines the accumulated evidence regarding analogy performance in the ASD population as it compares to that in typically-developing controls.
... Taura and Nagai [16] revealed that in idea generation via concept blending, the highest novelty is obtained from the base concepts with high distance. Design-by-analogy studies found that distant analogies contribute to novelty [17][18][19], but near-field analogies are more effective because of the ease of perception [20][21][22]. Venkataraman et al. [23] found knowledge distance between the solution concept and design problem increases the novelty of generated ideas but also decrease their quality. Fu et al. [24] posited that a moderate analogical distance is the most favorable for ideation outcomes. ...
Design innovation projects often generate large numbers of design ideas from designers, users and, increasingly, the crowd over the Internet. Such idea data are often used for selection and implementation, but in fact can also be used as sources of inspiration for further idea generation. In particular, the elementary concepts that underlie the original ideas can be recombined to generate new ideas. But it is not a trivial task to retrieve concepts from raw lists of ideas and data sources in a manner that can stimulate or generate new ideas. A significant difficulty lies in the fact that idea data are often expressed in unstructured natural languages. This paper develops a methodology that uses natural language processing to extract key words as elementary concepts embedded in massive idea descriptions and represents the elementary concept space in a core-periphery structure to direct the recombination of elementary concepts into new ideas. We apply the methodology to mine and represent the concept space underlying massive crowdsourced ideas and use it to generate new ideas for future transportation system designs in a real public-sector-sponsored project via humans and automated computer programs. Our analysis of the human and computer recombination processes and outcomes sheds light on future research directions for artificial intelligence in design ideation.
... A parallel body of research shows that higher-level reasoning, such as one's mobilization of analogies and other structural alignment processes, fosters creative insights and idea generation (see Chan et al., 2012;Chan and Schunn, 2015;Clarke and Holt, 2017). Interestingly, sleep has been shown to facilitate the restructuring of memory in ways that lead individuals to gain insight into abstract rules governing novel tasks (Wagner et al., 2004). ...
In spite of enthusiastic encouragements, theories of entrepreneurship still poorly explain the influence of physiological resources and dynamics on entrepreneurs' abilities to perform cognitive tasks known to enable entrepreneurial action. To advance research in this area, we develop and test new theoretical notions about sleep's effects on entrepreneurs' abilities to imagine promising new venture ideas, and to form initial beliefs about the attractiveness of such ideas. Results from three studies, including a self-comparison study over time and a randomized sleep deprivation experiment, show that a good night of sleep positively influences entrepreneurs' abilities to perform cognitive tasks at the very basis of entrepreneurial pursuits, whereas shortchanging sleep can yield suboptimal performance.
Access to large amounts of diverse design solutions can support designers during the early stage of the design process. In this paper, we explored the efficacy of large language models (LLM) in producing diverse design solutions, investigating the level of impact that parameter tuning and various prompt engineering techniques can have on the diversity of LLM-generated design solutions. Specifically, we used an LLM (GPT-4) to generate a total of 4,000 design solutions across five distinct design topics, eight combinations of parameters, and eight different types of prompt engineering techniques, leading to 50 LLM-generated solutions for each combination of method and design topic. Those LLM-generated design solutions were compared against 100 human-crowdsourced solutions in each design topic using the same set of diversity metrics. Results indicated that, across the five design topics tested, human-generated solutions consistently have greater diversity scores. Using a post hoc logistic regression analysis we also found that there is a meaningful semantic divide between humans and LLM-generated solutions in some design topics, but not in others. Taken together, these results contribute to the understanding of LLMs' capabilities and limitations in generating a large volume of diverse design solutions and offer insights for future research that leverages LLMs to generate diverse design solutions for a broad range of design tasks (e.g., inspirational stimuli).
This much-needed book introduces readers to the related fields of expertise, creativity, and performance, exploring our understanding of the factors contributing to greatness in creative domains.
Bringing together research from the fields of creativity and expertise, it provides fresh insights for newcomers and seasoned scholars alike with its approachable guide to the multidimensional complexities of expertise development. It transcends traditionally studied fields such as chess, sports, and music, instead exploring the intersection of expertise with creativity and the performing arts. Dedicated applied chapters cover eight fields, including mind-games, music, dance, creative writing, acting, art, and STEM. The book also examines the facilitators of creative performance, including aesthetic sensitivity, creativity, and mental imagery as well as the obstacles to performance such as burnout, procrastination, and gender-related challenges. The book concludes by engaging with pressing issues facing expertise, including the impact of AI. Student-friendly pedagogy is featured throughout, including 'Spotlight on...', 'Check it out...', and 'Consider this...' boxes to position material within context and engage students' learning.
Whether revealing how an actor brings their part to life, how writers conjure up their storylines and vibrant characters, or what lies behind scientific invention, The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise offers a fascinating insight into the multifaceted journey towards achieving creative excellence. This is a valuable resource for final-year undergraduates, postgraduate students, and scholars across a range of disciplines, including expertise or skill acquisition, the psychology of performance, and creativity.
Creative thinking is a process through which individuals generate ideas that are simultaneously novel and meaningful within a given social context. Historically, psychologists have closely studied the general creative capacity of young learners, as well as the domain-specific creativity of experts. However, the developmental trajectory from children’s general creativity to experts’ domain-specific creativity remains largely unmapped. In this article, we work to address this issue theoretically by drawing on one established conceptual framework of academic development, the Model of Domain Learning (MDL). The MDL contains specific hypotheses about how learners’ declarative and procedural knowledge, motivation, and performance within a domain change as they learn, and we here delineate our hypothesized ways in which creative thinking could be expected to concomitantly progress throughout that development. We suggest that domain creative thinking develops from a largely self-referenced process when domain knowledge is low, to a more highly socially-referenced process as domain knowledge grows. In addition, we argue that creativity can both support, and be supported by, domain learning and offer specific suggestions for incorporating creative thinking into instruction at each stage of domain learning. We also show that, as learners develop academically within a domain, creative thinking requires a progressively greater investment of time and effort, which contributes to the riskiness of creative innovation and the rareness of creative experts.
Much modern laboratory research on creative thinking, or in vitro research, is based on the “remote-associates” perspective, which assumes that creative advances arise through bringing together ideas which were previously “remotely associated,” that is, not directly linked. That view has provided the foundation for modern theorizing across a broad range of areas, including the role of associative processes in creativity, divergent thinking in creativity, attention in creativity, genius and madness, and the neuroscience of creativity. However, contrary to the remote-associates view, analyses of real-life – in vivo – creative thinking indicate that new ideas arose as variations on or extensions of old ideas, rather than through bringing together unrelated ideas in a far-ranging creative leap. This conflict between the in vitro and in vivo perspectives has resulted in a theoretical quandary for creativity studies – a “creativity quandary.” This article examines that quandary. The first section demonstrates the wide reach of the remote-associates view in laboratory research on creativity. The second section examines in vivo creative advances that raise questions for the remote-associates view. The third section presents an alternative conception of creative thinking, based on executive functioning, as a potential resolution of the creativity quandary. Similarities and differences between the present proposal and other recent theoretical analyses of creative thinking are discussed.
The study presented in this paper applies hidden Markov modeling (HMM) to uncover the recurring patterns within a neural activation dataset collected while designers engaged in a design concept generation task. HMM uses a probabilistic approach that describes data (here, fMRI neuroimaging data) as a dynamic sequence of discrete states. Without prior assumptions on the fMRI data's temporal and spatial properties, HMM enables an automatic inference on states in neurocognitive activation data that are highly likely to occur in concept generation. The states with a higher likelihood of occupancy show more activation in the brain regions from the executive control network, the default mode network, and the middle temporal cortex. Different activation patterns and transfers are associated with these states, linking to varying cognitive functions, for example, semantic processing, memory retrieval, executive control, and visual processing, that characterize possible transitions in cognition related to concept generation. HMM offers new insights into cognitive dynamics in design by uncovering the temporal and spatial patterns in neurocognition related to concept generation. Future research can explore new avenues of data analysis methods to investigate design neurocognition and provide a more detailed description of cognitive dynamics in design.
Creativity has been recognised as one of the most important skills in the 21st century. Although creativity has been advocated in the context of education, there still seems to be a lack of understanding of the concept of creativity, leading to teaching and learning practices that still encourage uniformity and conformity. The current literature on creativity is insufficient for understanding creativity from a more comprehensive manner, as frameworks and taxonomies for creativity largely focus on either listing a set of components relevant to creativity without explaining strategies that invoke creativity or categorising creative strategies without explaining the factors that support the use of these strategies, and the result of applying these strategies. More importantly, these frameworks are largely theoretical without empirical evidence. While there have been studies that investigate approaches for developing creativity, the effectiveness of these approaches is measured based on the improvement demonstrated through the creative outputs produced by the participants, by mainly looking at the number of solutions being produced and the originality of the solutions. They do not examine the use of strategies in the creative processes. As such, the understanding of how creativity can be supported by the use of set of strategies remains insufficient. In view of these situations, this study aimed to develop a taxonomic framework that could facilitate the understanding and development of creativity, which could serve as a foundation for teaching, learning and assessment. This study viewed creativity from the problem-solving perspective, where problems act as a catalyst for creative thinking. The sample for this study was lecturers and students across various disciplines from an international university in Malaysia. This study aimed at (i) developing a prototype taxonomic framework for creativity through a synthesis of literature on theories, frameworks and research on creativity, (ii) exploring and understanding the meaning of creativity from the higher education lecturers and students’ perspectives, (iii) examining the creativity features and usability of the taxonomic framework based on the perceptions of creativity and the relevance of the framework among a group of higher education lecturers and students, and (iv) examining the use of the creative strategies in the prototype taxonomic framework for creativity through a problem-solving task. The methodology for this study involved a mixed-methods, multiphase design. This study comprised four phases i.e., (i) a systematic synthesis of the literature on creativity through a thematic analysis to develop a prototype taxonomic framework for creativity, (ii) data collection from general higher education lecturers and students through a survey, (iii) data collection from the participant-nominated creative students and lecturers through a series of interviews, and (iv) data collection from higher education students through a problem-solving task. Findings revealed that the prototype taxonomic framework for creativity consisted of 24 features of creativity. Findings gained from the survey and interviews showed that creativity was generally perceived as an ability related to the mental processes and the ability to produce something that has a value – usually innovativeness and originality. Additionally, the taxonomic framework was generally perceived to be relevant for teaching, learning and assessment. Findings from the problem-solving task revealed that the taxonomic framework was able to facilitate creativity, by allowing students to use a wider range of strategies, produce more solutions, provide greater detail to their solutions and generate solutions that are novel, useful and ethical. In general, the overall findings from the study have demonstrated that creativity is a skill that can be taught and learned. The implications of the study offered several contributions of the framework for educational purposes.
We show how uncertainty and insight can be modeled using Reflexively Autocatalytic Foodset-generated (RAF) networks. RAF networks have been used to model the self-organization of adaptive networks associated with the origin and early evolution of both biological life, and the kind of cognitive structure necessary for cultural evolution. The RAF approach is applicable in these seemingly disparate cases because it provides a theoretical framework for formally describing systems composed of elements that interact to form new elements, and for studying under what conditions these (initial + new) elements collectively become integrated wholes of various types. Here, the elements are mental representations, and the whole is a conceptual network. The initial components—referred to as foodset items—are mental representations that are innate, or were acquired through social learning or individual learning (of pre-existing information). The new elements—referred to as foodset-derived items—are mental representations that result from creative thought (resulting in new information). The demarcation into foodset versus foodset-derived elements provides a natural means of (i) grounding abstract concepts in direct experiences (foodset-derived elements emerge through ‘reactions’ that can be traced back to foodset items), and (ii) precisely describing and tracking how new ideas emerge from earlier ones. Thus, RAFs can model how endogenous conceptual restructuring results in new conduits by which uncertainties can be resolved. A source of uncertainty is modeled as an element that resists integration into the conceptual network. This is described in terms of a maxRAF containing the bulk of the individual’s mental representations. Uncertainty produces arousal, which catalyzes one or more interactions amongst mental representations. We illustrate the approach using the historical example of Kekulé’s realization that benzene (Benzene is an organic chemical compound composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar ring with one hydrogen atom attached to each.) is ring-shaped through a reverie of a snake biting its tail. We show how a single conceptual change can precipitate a cascade of reiterated cognitive ‘reactions’ (self-organized criticality) that affect the network’s global structure, and discuss why this may help explain why cognitive restructuring can be therapeutic. Finally, we discuss educational implications of the RAF approach.KeywordsAnalogyAutocatalytic networkConceptual networkCreativityCross-domain transferInnovationPotentialityUncertainty
In contemporary technology education, engineering design is becoming an essential component to connect technology with Science, Mathematics, and Engineering. The engineering design process is an iterative process of devising a system, component, or strategy to meet desired needs. Still, there are many unanswered questions: “Why do we use the engineering design process?” “How do we use the design process?” and “How do students use the engineering design process to solve technological problems?” This chapter will review the existing engineering design process models presented by textbooks and researchers. Then, the author considers contemporary learning theories that align with the engineering design process in terms of design cognition. Next, the author will present a design process model derived from an experimental pattern study. This chapter will explain how students perceive and undertake the engineering design process in an authentic problem-solving setting, based on the research findings. Finally, this chapter contains practical suggestions on the use of the engineering design process in the classroom.KeywordsEngineering designSequential analysisEngineering and technology educationSTEM educationDesign cognition
Applying analogies in teaching and learning can significantly improve their outcomes. It is pedagogically important to know the various factors on which depend the frequency and manner of application of analogies. Such factors include creativity. We can see the relationship between creativity and analogy from several angles. In this paper, we are dealing with the connection between self-assessment of creativity and the tendency to apply analogies in a pedagogical context. On a sample of 305 students, the Kaufman Creativity Domain Scale (K-DOCS) and inventory were applied to measure the propensity to spontaneously apply analogies. The results suggest that there is a connection between self-assessment of creativity and a tendency to apply analogies, but also that the nature of that connection is complex. The connection was registered with two areas of expression of creativity (personal-everyday and academic area), while the connection with other areas was not registered. The meaning and pedagogical significance of the obtained results were discussed.
Diagnostic errors are considered a blind spot of health care delivery and occur in up to 15% of patient cases. Cognitive failures are a leading cause of diagnostic error and often occur as a result of overreliance on system 1 thinking. This narrative review describes why diagnostic errors occur by shedding additional light on systems 1 and 2 forms of thinking, reviews literature on debiasing strategies in medicine, and provides a framework for teaching critical thinking in the intensive care unit as a strategy to promote learner development and minimize cognitive failures.
Creating truly original ideas requires extensive knowledge of existing ideas. Navigating prior examples can help people to understand what has already been done and to assess the quality of their own ideas through comparison. The creativity literature has suggested that the conceptual distance between a proposed solution and a potential inspiration can influence one's thinking. However, less is known about how creators might use data about conceptual distance when exploring a large repository of ideas. To investigate this, we created a novel tool for exploring examples called IdeateRelate that visualizes 600+ COVID-related ideas, organized by their similarity to a new idea. In an experiment that compared the IdeateRelate visualization to a simple list of examples, we found that users in the Viz condition leveraged both semantic and categorical similarity, curated a more similar set of examples, and adopted more language from examples into their iterated ideas (without negatively affecting the overall novelty). We discuss implications for creating adaptive interfaces that provide creative inspiration in response to designers' ideas throughout an iterative design process.
There are growing efforts to mine public and common-sense semantic network databases for engineering design ideation stimuli. However, there is still a lack of design ideation aids based on semantic network databases that are specialized in engineering or technology-based knowledge. In this study, we present a new methodology of using the Technology Semantic Network (TechNet) to stimulate idea generation in engineering design. The core of the methodology is to guide the inference of new technical concepts in the white space surrounding a focal design domain according to their semantic distance in the large TechNet, for potential syntheses into new design ideas. We demonstrate the effectiveness in general, and use strategies and ideation outcome implications of the methodology via a case study of flying car design idea generation.
In many instances of online collaboration, ideation and deliberation about what to write happen separately from the synthesis of the deliberation into a cohesive document. However, this may result in a final document that has little connection to the discussion that came before. In this work, we present interleaved discussion and summarization, a process where discussion and summarization are woven together in a single space, and collaborators can switch back and forth between discussing ideas and summarizing discussion until it results in a final document that incorporates and references all discussion points. We implement this process into a tool called Wikum+ that allows groups working together on a project to create living summaries-artifacts that can grow as new collaborators, ideas, and feedback arise and shrink as collaborators come to consensus. We conducted studies where groups of six people each collaboratively wrote a proposal using Wikum+ and a proposal using a messaging platform along with Google Docs. We found that Wikum+'s integration of discussion and summarization helped users be more organized, allowing for light-weight coordination and iterative improvements throughout the collaboration process. A second study demonstrated that in larger groups, Wikum+ is more inclusive of all participants and more comprehensive in the final document compared to traditional tools.
Though often reliable, human memory is also fallible. This article examines how and why memory can get us into trouble. It is suggested that memory’s misdeeds can be classified into 7 basic “sins”: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. The first three sins involve different types of forgetting, the next three refer to different types of distortions, and the final sin concerns intrusive recollections that are difficult to forget. Evidence is reviewed concerning each of the 7 sins from relevant sectors of psychology (cognitive, social, and clinical) and from cognitive neuroscience studies that include patients with focal brain damage or make use of recently developed neuroimaging techniques. Although the 7 sins may appear to reflect flaws in system design, it is argued instead that they are by-products of otherwise adaptive features of memory.
Presents a spreading-activation theory of human semantic processing, which can be applied to a wide range of recent experimental results. The theory is based on M. R. Quillian's (1967) theory of semantic memory search and semantic preparation, or priming. In conjunction with this, several misconceptions concerning Quillian's theory are discussed. A number of additional assumptions are proposed for his theory to apply it to recent experiments. The present paper shows how the extended theory can account for results of several production experiments by E. F. Loftus, J. F. Juola and R. C. Atkinson's (1971) multiple-category experiment, C. Conrad's (1972) sentence-verification experiments, and several categorization experiments on the effect of semantic relatedness and typicality by K. J. Holyoak and A. L. Glass (1975), L. J. Rips et al (1973), and E. Rosch (1973). The paper also provides a critique of the Rips et al model for categorization judgments. (44 ref)
Analogical transfer in problem solving is one example of analogical cognition, which also includes metaphors, similes, and case-based reasoning. The dominant theories in this area posit that abstract schemata mediate transfer (K. J. Holyoak, 1984a, 1985) or that problem solving by means of analogy is accomplished through application of the formal or deep structural characteristics of one problem to another (D. Gentner, 1983, 1989). More recently, exemplar-based accounts (D. L. Medin & B. H. Ross, 1989; B. H. Ross, 1987) have emphasized problem content and exempias-specific details in the various stages of transfer. The present article reviews research on analogical transfer and analyzes the theoretical models in light of this evidence. An adequate theory of analogical transfer must account not only for the use of schematic knowledge but also for the importance of surface information in all stages of transfer (Reeves & Weisberg, 1993a). As such, it will be a hybrid of the various models presented, with exemplar-based models such as that of B. H. Ross as a base.
This paper reports on a series of experiments which were conducted to test the hypothesis that design fixation, defined as a blind adherence to a set of ideas or concepts limiting the output of conceptual design, is a measurable barrier in the conceptual design process. The results of the experiments clearly demonstrate the existence of design fixation. The paper related issues such as the nature of the phenomenon, some experimental issues which arise in such investigations, and directions for future research.
This paper proposes that the use of visual analogy in problem solving is an example of similarity-based reasoning, cognitively facilitated by imagistic operations. We show that in designing, which is an example of ill-structured problem solving, this type of reasoning is most valuable. We offer evidence that novices, in particular, benefit from guidance to use analogy, which helps them to better understand abstract concepts and to fully exploit their capacity to retrieve and implement previously acquired knowledge.
Analogy and similarity are often assumed to be distinct psychological processes. In contrast to this position, the authors suggest that both similarity and analogy involve a process of structural alignment and mapping, that is, that similarity is like analogy. In this article, the authors first describe the structure-mapping process as it has been worked out for analogy. Then, this view is extended to similarity, where it is used to generate new predictions. Finally, the authors explore broader implications of structural alignment for psychological processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Computational support for designing began in the early 1960s, and has had a considerable influence. Only recently has there been the possibility of providing computational support for innovative and creative designing. This paper presents a number of computational models of creative designing; including combination, transformation, analogy, emergence, and first principles as a representative set. It describes them within a uniform framework and indicates the potential of having such models on technological change in a society where designers are the change agents of the physical world.
This chapter focuses on the role of the reuse of knowledge to support idea generation. Expert designers often solve problems by taking known solutions and adapting them to a new situation. In many cases, truly novel solutions emerge from reusing solutions from one domain in a second domain in which they had not been applied before. This type of knowledge use requires analogy from one domain to another. This chapter discusses the processes involved in analogical problem-solving and present the results of experiments that demonstrate how knowledgeable designers use analogy. This chapter then discusses methods for improving the use of analogy in design. © 2009 by Arthur B. Markman and Kristin L. Wood. All rights reserved.
Psychologists have created highly specific and elaborate models of the creative process and the variables affecting creative performance. Unfortunately, much of this research has tended to take either an overanalytical or an underanalytical approach. By overanalytical we mean that researchers have studied single, isolated stages of group creativity, such as idea generation. By underanalytical we mean that researchers have tended to treat “creative group performance” as a single, unitary construct. However, we argue that it would be better to approach creativity as a multidimensional sequence of behaviors. In support of this argument, we discuss research on individual as well as group creativity showing that, firstly, there are multiple routes toward creative performance (e.g., flexibility and persistence), which may be pursued alone or in combination. It is likely that these different routes are subject to distinct influences. Secondly, we argue and show that different stages of the creative process (problem finding, idea generation, idea selection, idea implementation) are not necessarily affected by the same variables, or in the same way. We highlight some new questions for research, and discuss implications for the management of groups and teams.
The author developed a model that explains and predicts both longitudinal and cross-sectional variation in the output of major and minor creative products. The model first yields a mathematical equation that accounts for the empirical age curves, including contrasts across creative domains in the expected career trajectories. The model is then extended to account for individual differences in career trajectories, such as the longitudinal stability of cross-sectional variation and the differential placement of career landmarks (the ages at first, best, and last contribution). The theory is parsimonious in that it requires only two individual-difference parameters (initial creative potential and age at career onset) and two information-processing parameters (ideation and elaboration rates), plus a single principle (the equal-odds rule), to derive several precise predictions that cannot be generated by any alternative theory.
The serial order effect—the tendency for later responses to a divergent thinking task to be better than earlier
ones—is one of the oldest and most robust findings in modern creativity work. But why do ideas get better?
Using new methods that afford a fine-grained look at temporal trajectories, we contrasted two explanations:
the classic spreading activation account and a new account based on executive and strategic aspects of creative thought. After completing measures of fluid intelligence and personality, a sample of young adults (n � 133) completed a 10-min unusual uses task. Each response was time-stamped and then rated for creativity by three raters. Multilevel structural equation models estimated the trajectories of creativity and fluency across time and tested if intelligence moderated the effects of time. As in past work, creativity increased sharply with time and flattened slightly by the task’s end, and fluency was highest in the task’s first minute and then dropped sharply. Intelligence, however, moderated the serial order effect—as intelligence increased, the serial order effect diminished. Taken together, the findings are more consistent with a view that emphasizes executive processes, particularly processes involved in the strategic retrieval and manipulation of knowledge, than the simplespreading of activation to increasingly remote concepts.
Although both the academic and the trade literature have widely acknowledged the need to foster the development of more-innovative products, little empirical research has examined the cognitive processes underlying the creation of these novel product concepts. In this research, three empirical studies examine how analogical thinking influences the idea-generation stage of the new product development process. The first study uses the verbal protocols of real-world industrial designers to trace the role of analogy in the context of a new product development task, and the second and third studies use an experimental approach to assess the effectiveness of different ideation strategies and conditions. Findings from these studies indicate that the originality of the resulting product design is influenced by the extent of analogical transfer, the type of analogies used, and the presence of external primes. In addition, these studies reveal a positive relationship between the originality of the product concept and consumers' willingness to pay for it, an important measure in the concept-testing phase of product development.
This paper presents a model of innovation, knowledge brokering, that explains how some organizations are able to routinely innovate by recombining their past knowledge in new ways. While existing theories of organizational learning and innovation are useful, the links between them are crucial for understanding how existing knowledge becomes the raw materials from which individuals in organizations construct innovative solutions. This model develops these links by grounding processes of learning and innovation in the larger social context within which they occur. Using a microsociological perspective, this article draws together research spanning levels of analysis to explain innovation as the dissembling and reassembling of extant ideas, artifacts, and people. Previous research has suggested that firms spanning multiple domains may innovate by moving ideas from where they are known to where they are not, in the process creating new combinations of existing ideas. This paper more fully develops this process by linking the cognitive, social, and structural activities it comprises. Knowledge brokering involves exploiting the preconditions for innovation that reside within the larger social structure by bridging multiple domains, learning about the resources within those domains, linking that knowledge to new situations, and finally building new networks around the innovations that emerge from the process. This article also considers the origins of knowledge brokers as firms committed to this innovation strategy, the structural and cultural supports for the knowledge brokering process, and several obstacles to the process that these firms experience. Finally, I discuss the implications of this model for further research on innovation and learning, and the implications for other organizations seeking to establish their own capabilities for brokering knowledge.
Dimensions of Creativity brings together original articles that draw on a range of discipline—from the history and sociology of science, psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence—to ask how creative ideas arise, and whether creativity can be objectively defined and measured.
Dimensions of Creativity brings together original articles that draw on a range of disciplines—from the history and sociology of science, psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence—to ask how creative ideas arise, and whether creativity can be objectively defined and measured.
Margaret Boden and her colleagues Simon Schaffer, Gerd Gigerenzer, David N. Perkins, Howard Gardner, Colin Martindale, and Hans J. Eysenck demonstrate that creativity requires not only challenging new ideas but their acceptance by some relevant social group. Although some new ideas can arise as novel associations, others are generated by exploiting structural features of an existing conceptual space. Strong motivations often drive the creators and those who evaluate and perpetuate their work.
The seven essays—although very different—are complementary. The book can serve as an up-to-date introduction to the study of creativity in various disciplines. The many references provide a way into the relevant literature.
Bradford Books imprint
Analogy has been the focus of extensive research in cognitive science over the past two decades. Through analogy, novel situations and problems can be understood in terms of familiar ones. Indeed, a case can be made for analogical processing as the very core of cognition. This is the first book to span the full range of disciplines concerned with analogy. Its contributors represent cognitive, developmental, and comparative psychology; neuroscience; artificial intelligence; linguistics; and philosophy.
The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes computational models of analogy as well as their relation to computational models of other cognitive processes. The second part addresses the role of analogy in a wide range of cognitive tasks, such as forming complex cognitive structures, conveying emotion, making decisions, and solving problems. The third part looks at the development of analogy in children and the possible use of analogy in nonhuman primates.
Contributors Miriam Bassok, Consuelo B. Boronat, Brian Bowdle, Fintan Costello, Kevin Dunbar, Gilles Fauconnier, Kenneth D. Forbus, Dedre Gentner, Usha Goswami, Brett Gray, Graeme S. Halford, Douglas Hofstadter, Keith J. Holyoak, John E. Hummel, Mark T. Keane, Boicho N. Kokinov, Arthur B. Markman, C. Page Moreau, David L. Oden, Alexander A. Petrov, Steven Phillips, David Premack, Cameron Shelley, Paul Thagard, Roger K.R. Thompson, William H. Wilson, Phillip Wolff
Bradford Books imprint
Analogy has been the focus of extensive research in cognitive science over the past two decades. Through analogy, novel situations and problems can be understood in terms of familiar ones. Indeed, a case can be made for analogical processing as the very core of cognition. This is the first book to span the full range of disciplines concerned with analogy. Its contributors represent cognitive, developmental, and comparative psychology; neuroscience; artificial intelligence; linguistics; and philosophy.
The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes computational models of analogy as well as their relation to computational models of other cognitive processes. The second part addresses the role of analogy in a wide range of cognitive tasks, such as forming complex cognitive structures, conveying emotion, making decisions, and solving problems. The third part looks at the development of analogy in children and the possible use of analogy in nonhuman primates.
Contributors Miriam Bassok, Consuelo B. Boronat, Brian Bowdle, Fintan Costello, Kevin Dunbar, Gilles Fauconnier, Kenneth D. Forbus, Dedre Gentner, Usha Goswami, Brett Gray, Graeme S. Halford, Douglas Hofstadter, Keith J. Holyoak, John E. Hummel, Mark T. Keane, Boicho N. Kokinov, Arthur B. Markman, C. Page Moreau, David L. Oden, Alexander A. Petrov, Steven Phillips, David Premack, Cameron Shelley, Paul Thagard, Roger K.R. Thompson, William H. Wilson, Phillip Wolff
Bradford Books imprint
The idea that the language we speak influences the way we think has evoked perennial fascination and intense controversy. According to the strong version of this hypothesis, called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis after the American linguists who propounded it, languages vary in their semantic partitioning of the world, and the structure of one's language influences how one understands the world. Thus speakers of different languages perceive the world differently.
Although the last two decades have been marked by extreme skepticism concerning the possible effects of language on thought, recent theoretical and methodological advances in cognitive science have given the question new life. Research in linguistics and linguistic anthropology has revealed striking differences in cross-linguistic semantic patterns, and cognitive psychology has developed subtle techniques for studying how people represent and remember experience. It is now possible to test predictions about how a given language influences the thinking of its speakers.
Language in Mind includes contributions from both skeptics and believers and from a range of fields. It contains work in cognitive psychology, cognitive development, linguistics, anthropology, and animal cognition. The topics discussed include space, number, motion, gender, theory of mind, thematic roles, and the ontological distinction between objects and substances.
ContributorsMelissa Bowerman, Eve Clark, Jill de Villiers, Peter de Villiers, Giyoo Hatano, Stan Kuczaj, Barbara Landau, Stephen Levinson, John Lucy, Barbara Malt, Dan Slobin, Steven Sloman, Elizabeth Spelke, and Michael Tomasello
Bradford Books imprint
This textbook for engineering students provides an introduction to design for function, using many examples of manufactured artefacts and living organisms to demonstrate common themes and fundamental principles. Examples forcefully illustrate the importance of the basic design principles related to materials, energy and information. The author also discusses the relation of aesthetic and functional design, the crucial relation of design to production in artefacts, and reproduction in organisms. The book concludes with a brief summary of the role and requirements of designers and inventors. This second edition has been extensively revised, with more examples and a new chapter with actual design case studies to illustrate key ideas. In addition, many exercises have been added to help reinforce important points in the text.
Vinod Goel argues that the cognitive computational conception of the world requires our thought processes to be precise, rigid, discrete, and unambiguous; yet there are dense, ambiguous, and amorphous symbol systems, like sketching, painting, and poetry, found in the arts and much of everyday discourse that have an important, nontrivial place in cognition.
Much of the cognitive lies beyond articulate, discursive thought, beyond the reach of current computational notions. In Sketches of Thought, Vinod Goel argues that the cognitive computational conception of the world requires our thought processes to be precise, rigid, discrete, and unambiguous; yet there are dense, ambiguous, and amorphous symbol systems, like sketching, painting, and poetry, found in the arts and much of everyday discourse that have an important, nontrivial place in cognition.
Goel maintains that while on occasion our thoughts do conform to the current computational theory of mind, they often are—indeed must be—vague, fluid, ambiguous, and amorphous. He argues that if cognitive science takes the classical computational story seriously, it must deny or ignore these processes, or at least relegate them to the realm of the nonmental.
As a cognitive scientist with a design background, Goel is in a unique position to challenge cognitive science on its own territory. He introduces design problem solving as a domain of cognition that illustrates these inarticulate, nondiscursive thought processes at work through the symbol system of sketching. He argues not that such thoughts must remain noncomputational but that our current notions of computation and representation are not rich enough to capture them.
Along the way, Goel makes a number of significant and controversial interim points. He shows that there is a principled distinction between design and nondesign problems, that there are standard stages in the solution of design problems, that these stages correlate with the use of different types of external symbol systems; that these symbol systems are usefully individuated in Nelson Goodman's syntactic and semantic terms, and that different cognitive processes are facilitated by different types of symbol systems.
Bradford Books imprint
The subject of creativity has been neglected by psychologists. The immediate problem has two aspects. (1) How can we discover creative promise in our children and our youth, (2) How can we promote the development of creative personalities. Creative talent cannot be accounted for adequately in terms of I.Q. A new way of thinking about creativity and creative productivity is seen in the factorial conceptions of personality. By application of factor analysis a fruitful exploratory approach can be made. Carefully constructed hypotheses concerning primary abilities will lead to the use of novel types of tests. New factors will be discovered that will provide us with means to select individuals with creative personalities. The properties of primary abilities should be studied to improve educational methods and further their utilization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
How is it possible to think new thoughts? What is creativity and can science explain it? And just how did Coleridge dream up the creatures of The Ancient Mariner? When The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms was first published, Margaret A. Boden's bold and provocative exploration of creativity broke new ground. Boden uses examples such as jazz improvisation, chess, story writing, physics, and the music of Mozart, together with computing models from the field of artificial intelligence to uncover the nature of human creativity in the arts. The second edition of The Creative Mind has been updated to include recent developments in artificial intelligence, with a new preface, introduction and conclusion by the author. It is an essential work for anyone interested in the creativity of the human mind.
In this study, it is hypothesized that word stimuli, which are presented by Google's related search terms, would improve the quality of design concepts of game graphics. Result shows that the final creativity of the designs generated with word stimuli were significantly higher than designs without any stimuli. Despite this, a significant relationship between creativity and levels of stimuli was not observed. However, resulting terms more highly related to the search term were used more often than those less related.We proposed that related search terms may be effective as stimuli in the process of concept generation of game graphics.
Of the techniques available for idea generation with group support systems (GSS), little research attention has been given to techniques that challenge problem assumptions or that use unrelated stimuli to promote creativity. When implementing such techniques with GSS, choices must be made regarding how to configure the GSS to deploy the initial creative stimuli and to present the pool of emerging ideas that act as additional stimuli. This paper reports the results of an experiment that compares Electronic Brainstorming (few unnamed rotating dialogues) with Assumption Reversals (many related stimuli. many named dialogues, free movement among dialogues) and Analogies (many unrelated stimuli, many named dialogues, free movement among dialogues). Analogies produced creative, but fewer, ideas, due to the use of unrelated stimuli. Assumption Reversals produced the most, but less creative. ideas, possibly due to fragmentation of the group memory and cognitive inertia caused by lack of forced movement among dialogues.
It is commonly believed that creative thinking-the cognitive processes that bring about novel ideas and objects-is based on thinking "outside of the box." Creativity is assumed to require that we break away from our knowledge, and use some sort of extraordinary thought process to leap into the unknown. This chapter proposes, in contrast, that "inside-the-box thinking" is the basis for creativity: innovation is based on extensive knowledge in the area in question and moves beyond what is known in increments-small steps-based on ordinary cognitive processes, such as retrieval of knowledge from memory, analogical thinking, and logical reasoning. Examination of historical case studies of seminal innovations-Watson and Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix; the Wright brothers' invention of the airplane; Edison's invention of the kinetoscope (the first moving pictures); Picasso's creation of his great painting Guernica; and a case study of innovation in industry, IDEO's development of a new shopping cart-supports the idea that creative thinking was based first on a deep knowledge of the area. The thinkers moved beyond what was known in increments, rather than leaps, and they built on the past, rather than rejecting it. The idea that creativity is based on inside-the-box thinking and ordinary cognitive processes has implications for corporate innovation, several of which are discussed. © 2009 by Arthur B. Markman and Kristin L. Wood. All rights reserved.
Random cues may be both beneficial and harmful to creativity. Theories of analogical transfer and association assume that cues are helpful in generating new ideas. However, theories of path-of-least-resistance, fixation, and unconscious plagiarism say that cues can lead you into traps. Empirical research partly supports both theories. So what is a practitioner to do in selecting random cues for enhancing creativity? It is suggested that the answer is found in looking at the relationship between cues and the creative cognitive processes and their functions, and how this leads to creative outcome originality and usefulness. Two processes are examined: analogical transfer and mental simulation. It is recommended that random between-domain cues be used to increase between domain analogizing primarily with instruction to make connections, leading to product originality Random within-domain cues should be used to increase within-domain analogizing. Due to property transfer, close analogies may have a negative impact on the originality of the outcome in problem-solving instances, but a positive impact on usefulness in problemidentifying and problem-solving instances. Random end-user cues will lead to greater amounts of end-user simulations of usability and user preferences, and thus to higher levels of product usefulness. © 2009 by Arthur B. Markman and Kristin L. Wood. All rights reserved.
This paper investigates a possibly fundamental aspect of technological progress. If knowledge accumulates as technology advances, then successive generations of innovators may face an increasing educational burden. Innovators can compensate through lengthening educational phases and narrowing expertise, but these responses come at the cost of reducing individual innovative capacities, with implications for the organization of innovative activity - a greater reliance on teamwork - and negative implications for growth. Building on this "burden of knowledge" mechanism, this paper first presents six facts about innovator behaviour. I show that age at first invention, specialization, and teamwork increase over time in a large micro-data set of inventors. Furthermore, in cross-section, specialization and teamwork appear greater in deeper areas of knowledge, while, surprisingly, age at first invention shows little variation across fields. A model then demonstrates how these facts can emerge in tandem. The theory further develops explicit implications for economic growth, providing an explanation for why productivity growth rates did not accelerate through the 20th century despite an enormous expansion in collective research effort. Upward trends in academic collaboration and lengthening doctorates, which have been noted in other research, can also be explained in this framework. The knowledge burden mechanism suggests that the nature of innovation is changing, with negative implications for long-run economic growth.
This article describes an integrated theory of analogical access and mapping, instantiated in a computational model called LISA (Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogies). LISA represents predicates and objects as distributed patterns of activation that are dynamically bound into propositional structures, thereby achieving both the flexibility of a connectionist system and the structure sensitivity of a symbolic system. The model treats access and mapping as types of guided pattern classification, differing only in that mapping is augmented by a capacity to learn new correspondences. The resulting model simulates a wide range of empirical findings concerning human analogical access and mapping. LISA also has a number of inherent limitations, including capacity limits, that arise in human reasoning and suggests a specific computational account of these limitations. Extensions of this approach also account for analogical inference and schema induction.
Traditionally, we think of `mind' as something in the head or brain. But when one studies scientists and inventors, one quickly realizes that much of their cognition is distributed in the world. This paper applies a cognitive framework to a fine-grained analysis of the invention of the telephone, in which we look closely at a series of Bell's experiments and show how his devices serve as representations of his intentions and understandings. This kind of analysis also establishes that, although Bell and his chief rival, Elisha Gray, built devices that appeared similar, their representations of their function and potential were different.
A study is reported which focused on the problem-solving strategies employed by expert electronics engineers pursuing a real-world task: integrated-circuit design. Verbal protocol data were analysed so as to reveal aspects of the organisation and sequencing of ongoing design activity. These analyses indicated that the designers were implementing a highly systematic solution-development strategy which deviated only a small degree from a normatively optimal top-down and breadth-first method. Although some of the observed deviation could be described as opportunistic in nature, much of it reflected the rapid depth-first exploration of tentative solution ideas. We argue that switches from a predominantly breadth-first mode of problem solving to depth-first or opportunistic modes may be an important aspect of the expert's strategic knowledge about how to conduct the design process effectively when faced with difficulties, uncertainties, and design impasses.
This paper applies a biomimetic design method to generate concepts for design that facilitates remanufacture. Biomimetic design fully or partially imitates or evokes some biological phenomenon. A method for identifying and using biological analogies for engineering problems was introduced in an earlier paper. This initial method was tested on an example in design for remanufacture. Here, the method is further developed and used to find more biomimetic solutions for the same problem in design for remanufacture. While the example problem is in remanufacture, the method can be used to develop biomimetic concepts for engineering design in general. The paper first summarizes previous efforts in developing and testing the biomimetic concept generation technique. Next described are the differences in the method that are used for this paper, including the increased importance of strategies to help identify promising analogies. Results of applying the modified method to design for remanufacture are documented.
The selection of sources of inspiration is a crucial moment while designing, as it can enhance design creativity. Designers seem to prefer using pictorial representation modalities despite empirical investigations indicating possible disadvantages of such unimodal approaches. Therefore, it is valid to ask whether designers are disregarding other available stimuli, such as textual representations. In order to answer this question and to find out about the usefulness of different textual stimuli during ideation phases, we exposed novice designers to three types of written stimuli, with different semantic levels. The results indicate that between close and very distant related types of stimuli, there is an intermediate type that is likely to stimulate participants to generate a larger number of more flexible and original ideas. This intermediate type of stimulus seems to prompt designers to generate ideas that are more creative in terms of fluency, flexibility, and originality. Conversely, the too close and the too distant stimuli reveal being less useful for creative problem solving. Looking into alternative types of stimuli, as well as stimuli entailing varying levels of distance with the problem at hand, can possibly help designers in increasing their creative potential.
This paper explores how important the quality of the raw idea is in determining success in innovation. On the one hand, one could argue that without a good idea, the chance of success is very small: “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” On the other hand, one could argue that with the right resources and approach, an innovator can create value out of just about anything: the Midas hypothesis. We provide a conceptual framework for thinking about this question generally and then test it empirically in one significant domain — household consumer products. We develop a novel data set from Quirky, a community-driven product development company. Our data include descriptions of the raw ideas originally proposed, the ultimate product designs that resulted from those ideas, and sales data. We augment the data from Quirky with multiple measures of idea quality that we obtained. We find that ideas do matter. We find that the quality of the raw idea as estimated by commercially feasible techniques is a significant predictor of market outcomes. In spite of the issues from selection and the variance introduced by measurement error, we do see a statistically significant relationship. We also conclude that for the domain we study, surveys of consumers are a better way to determine what a “good” idea is than ratings by even highly experienced experts. This is the first study we know of to demonstrate a significant link between idea quality and outcome using actual raw ideas and market outcomes.
We are motivated to investigate methods to increase creativity in conceptual design since creativity is essential to design success, and no other stage influences final design success as much as conceptual design. Existing work supports that design stimuli may encourage creative concept generation, but does not give details on how to systematically generate stimuli. The established relationship between language and cognition, and the systematic nature of language prompt us to examine its use as design stimuli. Language relationships such as opposition provide a systematic method of generating non-obvious semantic stimuli for design problems. In this paper, we present two experiments, a pen-and-paper and a verbal protocol study, where participants used oppositely related and similarly related word stimuli in conceptual design. We found that designers using oppositely related word stimuli developed more creative concepts. Language analysis revealed how opposite stimuli elicited designer behaviours that may encourage and support creative concept generation. Our empirical results combined with linguistic theory lead us to propose a model explaining the interactions and effects of opposite-stimulus words on concept creativity. This knowledge can be used to facilitate more creative, and ultimately, more successful design.
This paper describes an interpretive framework for understanding the cognitive or mental processes of inventors, and applies this framework to narrating how Thomas Edison developed the kinetoscope, or motion picture. A review of recent developments in the history of technology and cognitive science suggests the need for better conceptual categories for understanding and comparing how inventors approach problems. We show how Edison created a mental model of the kinetoscope from his existing phonograph, and how his assistant William K. L. Dickson (who is often credited with inventing the kinetoscope) developed his own alternative mental model. We further discuss how Edison utilized building blocks or mechanical representations from previous inventions, and what strategies or heuristics he employed. In particular, we examine how Edison divided the project between himself and Dickson. The overall result of applying our framework to this case is to provide a clearer picture of the roles played by Edison and Dickson in this invention. The paper closes with a discussion on the potential relationship between cognitive and sociological approaches to technological innovation.
The overall objectives of the study are to identify key components of ideation methods and develop effectiveness metrics. This paper presents experimental results conducted on six ideation components (Provocative Stimuli, Suspend Judgment, Flexible Representation, Frame of Reference Shifting, Incubation, and Example Exposure). These experiments were conducted simultaneously at the Design (engineering) and Lab (cognitive psychology) levels following an experimental procedure previously developed to align these two levels of experiments. Results show the effectiveness of the ideation components in terms of effectiveness metrics and also the extent of alignment of the results from these two levels. Understanding of ideation components has been gained (main effects ease of manipulation and interactions).