The role of graded category structure in imaginative thought

Ward, Thomas B.; Patterson, Merryl J.; Sifonis, Cynthia M.; Dodds, Rebecca A.; Saunders, Katherine N.

doi:10.3758/bf03195281

Cited by 140 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…This model states that the default approach in tasks involving the imagination, especially when few constraints must be satisfied, is to access a specific known entity or category exemplar and then to pattern the new entity after it. In support of this model, Ward (1994;Ward, Patterson, Sifonis, Dodds, & Saunders, 2002) found that people who reported basing their novel constructions on specific exemplars were less original than people who used other strategies. Property transfer in generative tasks has proven robust across a variety of settings, including engineering design tasks conducted in the lab (Christiaans & Andel, 1993;Dahl & Moreau, 2002;Jansson & Smith, 1991).…”

Section: Preinventive Structures and Analogymentioning

confidence: 60%

The relationship of analogical distance to analogical function and preinventive structure: the case of engineering design

2007

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Section: Preinventive Structures and Analogymentioning

confidence: 60%

The relationship of analogical distance to analogical function and preinventive structure: the case of engineering design

2007

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“…In the context of semantic categorization research, the relationship between instances and the category are often described in terms of exemplar and category strength or dominance (e.g., Casey, 1992; Hampton, 1997;Larochelle et al, 2000;Ward et al, 2002). Controlled associations tasks to estimate these variables show strong agreement with the gradedness or exemplar/category strength measures obtained in a free continuous association task.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Word associations: Norms for 1,424 Dutch words in a continuous task

2008

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This study describes the collection of a large set of word association norms. In a continuous word association task, norms for 1,424 Dutch words were gathered. For each cue, three association responses were obtained per participant. In total, an average of 268 responses were collected for each cue. We investigated the relationship with similar procedures, such as discrete association tasks and exemplar generation tasks. The results show that the use of a continuous task allows the study of weaker associations in comparison with a discrete task. The effects of the continuous tasks were investigated for set size and the availability characteristics of the responses, measured through word frequency, age of acquisition, and imageability. Finally, we compared our findings to those of a semantically constrained version of the association task in which participants generated responses within the domain of a semantic category. Results of this comparison are discussed. The Appendix cited in this article is available at www.psychonomic.org/archive.

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“…Ward (e.g., 1994Ward (e.g., , 1995Ward (e.g., , 1998 has proposed a 'path-of-least-resistance' (POLR) model to explain this observation, stating that the default approach in tasks involving the imagination, especially when few constraints must be satisfied, is to access a specific known entity or category exemplar and -7 -subsequently to pattern the new entity after it. There is, however, a downside to taking the path of least resistance, since it has been found that people who fixate on specific exemplars are less original in their idea productions than people who use other strategies (e.g., Christiaans & Andel, 1993;Dahl & Moreau, 2002;Jansson & Smith, 1991;Ward, Patterson, Sifonis, Dodds, & Saunders, 2002). …”

Section: Analogical Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creative analogy use in a heterogeneous design team: The pervasive role of background domain knowledge

Christensen

Ball

2016

Design Studies

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Abstract-2 -We integrated two research traditions -one focusing on analogical reasoning, the other on knowledge sharing -with the aim of examining how designers' unique knowledge backgrounds can fuel analogy-based creativity. The present dataset afforded a unique opportunity to pursue this aim since the design dialogue derived from team members with highly disparate educational backgrounds. Our analyses revealed that analogies that matched (versus mismatched) educational backgrounds were generated and revisited more frequently, presumably because they were more accessible. Matching analogies were also associated with increased epistemic uncertainty, perhaps because domain experts appreciate the challenge of mapping such analogies between domains. Our findings support claims from the knowledge-sharing literature for a direct route from knowledge diversity through analogical reasoning to novel idea production. KeywordsDesign cognition, analogical reasoning, creative design, collaborative design, conceptual designThe design process typically involves designers drawing on personal experiences relating to their past design work as well as on knowledge of other design projects or products (e.g., Ball, Lambell, Reed, & Reid, 2001;Cross, 2006). Such prior experience and knowledge then serves to inform a solution for the current design problem, shaping both its initial development and its subsequent refinement. Indeed, the very notion of 'design-by-analogy' (e.g., Helms, Vattam, & Goel, 2009;Moreno et al., 2014) points specifically to the frequent capacity for designers to transfer solution structures or elements from a known source domain to a target design problem.In studying such design-by-analogy, researchers have often tended -perhaps inadvertently -to control out individual variation in the background domain knowledge of the designers being analysed, instead focusing on homogeneous participants with very similar backgrounds in terms of their design education, training and company-based experiences, for example, in domains such as industrial product design (e.g., Ball, Ormerod, & Morley, 2004), electronic engineering design (e.g., Jagodzinski, Reid, Culverhouse, Parsons, & Phillips, 2000) or the design of medical plastics (e.g., Christensen & Schunn, 2007). In the extreme case of numerous laboratory experiments that have investigated design-by-analogy the source analogies are presented directly to individual participants in the form of one or more initial examples for perusal (e.g., Casakin, 2004;Casakin & Goldschmidt, 1999;Goldschmidt, 1995). In this way very tight constraints are placed on the experimental setting so that the researcher can assess the specific role that such source materials have on the design process and the resulting design products. These latter kinds of laboratory studies are actually rather paradoxical, since although it is assumed that analogy sources in real-world design practice are frequently drawn from a designer's own background knowledge and experience, the examination of analogy use i...

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The role of graded category structure in imaginative thought

Cited by 140 publications

References 48 publications

The relationship of analogical distance to analogical function and preinventive structure: the case of engineering design

The relationship of analogical distance to analogical function and preinventive structure: the case of engineering design

Word associations: Norms for 1,424 Dutch words in a continuous task

Creative analogy use in a heterogeneous design team: The pervasive role of background domain knowledge

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