Using analogies to explain versus inspire concepts

Abstract

We aim to examine the potential of using analogies in design education and to compare the roles of analogies in explaining versus inspiring in engineering design. We review existing research in analogical thinking, with a focus on scientific discourse and education. Then we explore the role of analogies in design education in making concepts more relatable by asking six participants in a graduate-level design course to generate analogies for course topics. We describe criteria developed to evaluate the analogies and present these evaluations. We then asked participants to perform divergent thinking tests, but we found no significant correlation between these and analogy scores. The participants were also asked to reflect on what constitutes an effective analog, describe their process of identifying analogies, and provide their definitions of analogies. We describe possible links between these comments and the ratings of their analogies. We then draw on results in using analogies in pedagogy to inform and reflect on obstacles we encountered in the use of analogies to inspire. Specifically, we related them to our experience with biomimetic or biologically inspired design, where we used a natural-language search approach to identify relevant analogies. Three aspects discussed are familiarity of source analogies, boundaries of parallels between source analogies and target concepts, and concreteness of source analogies. Finally, we discuss possible pedagogical benefits of eliciting analogies on course topics from students, namely, using the elicited analogies as tools for improved student engagement as well as more prompt instructor feedback.

Broadening the Taxonomic Breadth of Organisms in the Bio-Inspired Design Process

“…Several factors may limit such divergent thinking in a biomimetic process. First, prior experience tends to bias us toward biological models with which we are more familiar [ 29 , 30 ], as we often have the knowledge of these organisms to make the analogy bridge between biology and the focal problem. Databases such as AskNature can help those new to biology discover different organisms [ 31 , 32 ], but studies have shown that this is still a narrower range than that generated by biologists with more familiarity with biodiversity [ 11 , 33 ].…”

Differences Between Beginning and Advanced Students Using Specific Analogical Stimuli During Design-by-Analogy

“…Analogy is a process of association between situations from the source domain to the target domain achieved by establishing relationships (Gentner, 1988;Blanchette and Dunbar, 2000). Analogical thinking is widely used in the design domains such as engineer design (Al-Obaidi and Pitts, 1995;Ngo et al, 2014), product design (Appleton and Short, 2008;O'Rourke and Seepersad, 2015), design education (Chou and Shu, 2015), bioinspired design (Helms and Goel, 2014;Fu et al, 2014), and cognitive psychology (Paletz et al, 2013). On the one hand, analogy motivates designers, engineers, and scientists to obtain problem-solving strategies (Keshwani and Chakrabarti, 2016;Casakin and Goldschmidt, 1999).…”

Use of analogies, metaphors, and similes by students and reviewers at an undergraduate architectural design review

“…In some respect, the design reviews at schools are precursors of design reviews in the professional design field, which are meetings during which major decisions are made collaboratively (Huet et al, 2007). Design reviews provide a unique setting in which one could observe both explanatory and inspirational use of analogies, metaphors, and similes (for analogies, see Chou and Shu, 2015). Furthermore, design reviews put both students and reviewers in a situation in which they cannot consult any outside source, forcing them to invoke primarily internal source analogs, that is, retrieval of sources from long-term memory (see Srinivasan et al, 2015).…”