On the benefits and pitfalls of analogies for innovative design : Ideation performance based on analogical distance, commonness, and modality of examples
01 Aug 2011-Journal of Mechanical Design (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)-Vol. 133, Iss: 8, pp 081004
TL;DR: Positive effects of far-field and less-common examples on novelty and variability in quality of solution concepts are shown and guidelines for the effective design and implementation of design-by-analogy methods are suggested, particularly a focus on far- field, less- common examples during the ideation process.
Abstract: Drawing inspiration from examples by analogy can be a powerful tool for innovative design during conceptual ideation but also carries the risk of negative design outcomes (e.g., design fixation), depending on key properties of examples. Understanding these properties is critical for effectively harnessing the power of analogy. The current research explores how variations in analogical distance, commonness, and representation modality influence the effects of examples on conceptual ideation. Senior-level engineering students generated solution concepts for an engineering design problem with or without provided examples drawn from the U.S. Patent database. Examples were crossed by analogical distance (near-field vs. far-field), commonness (more vs. less-common), and modality (picture vs. text). A control group that received no examples was included for comparison. Effects were examined on a mixture of ideation process and product variables. Our results show positive effects of far-field and less-common examples on novelty and variability in quality of solution concepts. These effects are not modulated by modality. However, detailed analyses of process variables suggest divergent inspiration pathways for far-field vs. less-common examples. Additionally, the combination of far-field, less-common examples resulted in more novel concepts than in the control group. These findings suggest guidelines for the effective design and implementation of design-by-analogy methods, particularly a focus on far-field, less-common examples during the ideation process. © 2011 American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
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TL;DR: A cognitive engineering design study is presented that examines the effect of the distance of analogical design stimuli on design solution generation, and places those findings in context of results from the literature.
Abstract: This work lends insight into the meaning and impact of “near” and “far” analogies. A cognitive engineering design study is presented that examines the effect of the distance of analogical design stimuli on design solution generation, and places those findings in context of results from the literature. The work ultimately sheds new light on the impact of analogies in the design process and the significance of their distance from a design problem. In this work, the design repository from which analogical stimuli are chosen is the U.S. patent database, a natural choice, as it is one of the largest and easily accessed catalogued databases of inventions. The “near” and “far” analogical stimuli for this study were chosen based on a structure of patents, created using a combination of Latent Semantic Analysis and a Bayesian based algorithm for discovering structural form, resulting in clusters of patents connected by their relative similarity. The findings of this engineering design study are contextualized with the findings of recent work in design by analogy, by mapping the analogical stimuli used in the earlier work into similar structures along with the patents used in the current study. Doing so allows the discovery of a relationship between all of the stimuli and their relative distance from the design problem. The results confirm that “near” and “far” are relative terms, and depend on the characteristics of the potential stimuli. Further, although the literature has shown that “far” analogical stimuli are more likely to lead to the generation innovative solutions with novel characteristics, there is such a thing as too far. That is, if the stimuli are too distant, they then can become harmful to the design process. Importantly, as well, the data mapping approach to identify analogies works, and is able to impact the effectiveness of the design process. This work has implications not only in the area of finding inspirational designs to use for design by analogy processes in practice, but also for synthesis, or perhaps even unification, of future studies in the field of design by analogy.
222 citations
Cites background or methods or result from "On the benefits and pitfalls of ana..."
...This baseline space included only solution types from a universe of 583 ideas generated by participants who either had or had not received patent examples, including ideas from participants in a previous ideation study using the same design problem [66]....
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...The space was defined by using functional decomposition to create a set of possible subfunctions of solutions to the design problem, based on the methodology and consistent with those used in our previous design by analogy study [66] informed by the function and flow basis of Hirtz et al....
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...These “best” concepts were then evaluated using a detailed quality analysis, similar to that which was used in our previous design by analogy work [66]....
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...The original set of subfunctions was the same as that used in the previous study [66]....
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...For consistency and comparability, these metrics are the same as those used in our previous work with design by analogy with minor modifications noted below [66]....
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TL;DR: Recognising fixation episodes and reflecting on them was described as the means by which designers could guard against such episodes in the future and thus be more creative.
200 citations
Cites background from "On the benefits and pitfalls of ana..."
...tance’ from the design domain that is otherwise being considered (Chan et al., 2011; Fu et al., 2013; Gonçalves, Cardoso, & Badke-Schaub, 2013; Tseng et al., 2008)....
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...There is also strong support for the idea that designers should be exposed to ideas that are an appropriate ‘distance’ from the design domain that is otherwise being considered (Chan et al., 2011; Fu et al., 2013; Gonçalves, Cardoso, & Badke-Schaub, 2013; Tseng et al., 2008)....
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TL;DR: This paper presents a novel approach, referred to as the WordTree design-by-analogy method, for identifying distant-domain analogies as part of the ideation process and highlights potentialimprovements for the method and areas for future research in engineering design theory.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel approach, referred to as the WordTree design-by-analogymethod, for identifying distant-domain analogies as part of the ideation process. TheWordTree method derives its effectiveness through a design team’s knowledge and read-ily available information sources (e.g., patent databases, Google) and does not requirespecialized computational knowledge bases. A controlled cognitive experiment and anevaluation of the method with redesign projects illustrate the method’s influence in assist-ing engineers in design-by-analogy. Individuals using the WordTree method identifiedsignificantly more analogies and searched outside the problem domain as compared tothe control group. The team redesign projects demonstrate the WordTree method’s effec-tiveness in longer-term, more realistic, higher validity team projects and with a variety ofdifferent design problems. Teams successfully identified effective analogies, analogousdomains, and analogous patents. Unexpected and unique solutions are identified usingthe method. For example, one of the teams identified a dump truck and panning forgold as effective analogies for the design of a self-cleaning cat litter box. In thecontrolled experiment, a cherry pitter was identified and implemented as a solution fordesigning a machine to shell peanuts. The experimental results also highlight potentialimprovements for the method and areas for future research in engineering design theory.[DOI: 10.1115/1.4006145]Keywords: analogy, conceptual design, innovation, design method, idea generation
198 citations
TL;DR: It was revealed that providing examples made individuals generate more example-related and fewer categories of ideas, however, the ideas produced were more novel and the quality of solutions ideas was positively correlated with the degree of copying from examples.
149 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a review of inspiration and fixation studies is presented, focusing on 25 studies that adopt a similar experimental approach and revealing 14 manipulated variables, relating to properties of the inspiration source and features of the design process.
136 citations
Cites background from "On the benefits and pitfalls of ana..."
...…is good support for the idea that stimuli that are neither too near nor too far from the problem domain are more likely to produce creative insights and novel solutions (Chan et al., 2011; Dahl &Moreau, 2002; Fu et al., 2013; Gentner &Markman, 1997; Gonçalves et al., 2012; Linsey et al., 2010)....
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Abstract: Introduction The Nature of Theories What Are Unified Theories of Cognition? Is Psychology Ready for Unified Theories? The Task of the Book Foundations of Cognitive Science Behaving Systems Knowledge Systems Representation Machines and Computation Symbols Architectures Intelligence Search and Problem Spaces Preparation and Deliberation Summary Human Cognitive Architecture The Human Is a Symbol System System Levels The Time Scale of Human Action The Biological Band The Neural Circuit Level The Real-Time Constraint on Cognition The Cognitive Band The Level of Simple Operations The First Level of Composed Operations The Intendedly Rational Band Higher Bands: Social, Historical, and Evolutionary Summary Symbolic Processing for Intelligence The Central Architecture for Performance Chunking The Total Cognitive System RI-Soar: Knowledge-Intensive and Knowledge-Lean Operation Designer-Soar: Difficult Intellectual Tasks Soar as an Intelligent System Mapping Soar onto Human Cognition Soar and the Shape of Human Cognition Summary Immediate Behavior The Scientific Role of Immediate-Response Data Methodological Preliminaries Functional Analysis of Immediate Responses The Simplest Response Task (SRI) The Two-Choice Response Task (2CRT) Stimulus-Response Compatibility (SRC) Discussion of the Three Analyses Item Recognition Typing Summary Memory, Learning, and Skill The Memory and Learning Hypothesis of Soar The Soar Qualitative Theory of Learning The Distinction between Episodic and Semantic Memory Data Chunking Skill Acquisition Short-Term Memory (STM) Summary Intendedly Rational Behavior Ciyptarithmetic Syllogisms Sentence Verification Summary Along the Frontiers Language Development The Biological Band The Social Band The Role of Applications How to Move toward Unified Theories of Cognition References Name Index Subject Index
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TL;DR: The use of an analogy from a semantically distant domain to guide the problemsolving process was investigated in five experiments as discussed by the authors, where subjects who first read a story about a military problem and its solution tended to generate analogous solutions to a medical problem, provided they were given a hint to use the story to help solve the problem.
2,425 citations
"On the benefits and pitfalls of ana..." refers background in this paper
...from memory [20] or notice as relevant to one’s target problem [5]....
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...This sort of transfer is greater in distance than typically seen in the analogy literature, where far-field analogies in problem solving are usually from cases in other domains that are surface dissimilar but still solve the same basic problem [20,45]....
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27 Mar 1991
TL;DR: 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 as discussed by the authors, which is an essential work for anyone interested in the creativity of the human mind.
Abstract: 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, science and everyday life. 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.
2,371 citations