Jóvenes voluntarios como canal de incidencia del proceso de

One strand of research in generating analogies has focused on the various stimuli in the creative process that can help overcome fixation (Chun & Jiang, 1998; Smith & Dodds, 1999). The term fixation is frequently used to describe the types of impediments that cause mental blocks or lack of progress in creative thinking, such as perceptual blocks. Fixations usually occur when people are confronted with inappropriate information, make less accurate assumptions, are biased by previous knowledge or fail to retrieve the appropriate knowledge from long term memory. Known remedies for fixation are incubation (Smith & Dodds, 1999; Sio & Ormerod, 2009) and the use of visual stimuli (Goldschmidt & Smolkov, 2006). The way visual analogies for insight problem solving are generated, developed, and evaluated for their effectiveness is explored in this thesis. Many studies show that the use of visual stimuli promotes conceptual learning and

problem solving (Goswami U. , 1998). The visual and spatial hints aid comprehension (Gentner & Rattermann, 1991) of abstract relationships (Kosslyn, 2006; Dominowski & Dallob, 1995; Vosniadou, 1989; Christensen & Schunn, 2009) and can also increase transfer (Gick & Holyoak, 1983). However, unsuccessful visual stimuli may produce confusions and misunderstandings that can lead to their uselessness or even harmful misconceptions (Clement J. J., 2008). Investigations on how to create effective visual stimuli may offer a cognitive backup to help people to reap maximum benefit from visual analogies (Richland, Zur, & Holyoak, 2007). Using the think-aloud evidence from videotaped subjects during problem solving, Clement (2008) identified at least three different methods that expert scientists use to generate analogies: via a principle, via associations, and via transformations. Some of the cases in his studies were qualified as newly invented with inconclusive results suggesting a need for further investigation. Although Clement’s findings are plausible, we argue that his investigations were limited in that only mental interpretations in analogy-making were used.

According to psychologists’ views on the developmental curve (Crain, 2010), reasoning based on similarity in early childhood follows rule-based reasoning in adulthood; therefore, similarity relates to the figurative quality and is largely visual (Gentner & Rattermann, 1991). Studies of design fixation have shown that people who saw examples of inappropriate “hints” have a hard time moving beyond those hints in tasks for creative idea generation (Landau & Lehr, 2004). The visual information supporting mapping is not always easy to perceive, and requires testing to explore its effectiveness in problem solving.

Although research in constructing visual analogy is limited, some studies suggest that contextual cueing (Chun & Jiang, 1998, p. 28) plays an important role in visual tasks and “is driven by incidentally learned associations between spatial configurations and target locations”. Natural scenes are sought by an observer as very rich and complex and may constrain visual processing, but an image can prioritise object recognition for selection and facilitate meaningful regularities between objects and context. In fact, Chun & Jiang refer to the same characteristics of stored schemas (De Koning B. B., Tabbers, Rikers, & Pass, 2007) in long term memory. In their research report, Himmel & Nadolski (2002) presented guidelines for effective cueing suggesting that hints should reflect the relationships between and within tasks, be task-ordered to saliently describe relevant task characteristics and redirect attention from extraneous to germane

processes; hints should also support practice, and facilitate cognitive transfer. Such understanding of which types of hint characteristics are more effective for supporting problem solving could benefit from more empirical work which explores the process of generating them. This thesis explores the construction of effective cueing in problem solving through a practice-led research method to identify the principles used by a visual professional in analogy-making. Inspired by the findings that indicate that analogies are often employed by artists, architects and designers, particularly in the initial stages of planning, generating and visualising ideas (Do & Gross, 1996; Kandinsky, 1979; Patherbridge, 2010; Tversky B. , 1999), we crafted an appropriate methodology for our study (Chapter 4 - Research Methodology and Methods Used). Additional psychological (Ball, Ormerod, & Morley, 2004; Larkin & Simon, 1987; Vosniadou, 1989), neurophysiological (Wharton, et al., 1998) and developmental (Goswami U. , 1998) data on analogy-making (Kowaltowski, Bianchi, & de Paiva, 2010), through the practice and reflection of practitioners, further support this methodology.

Just as the first-person accounts of artists and researchers on their creative processes may open up new ways of understanding what is being selected as a hint for a given problem, as well as how and why, the work in this thesis also argues that analogy construction can be examined by a practice-led approach, properly documenting and reflecting on this process.

Another study (Garner, 2001) suggests that freehand sketching in the design process may be a powerful catalyst in the generation process as the “inherent-imperfect” lines and shapes of sketches create vagueness in visual representations, thus continuously stimulating reinterpretation. Suwa and Tversky (1997) pointed out the need to develop computer-based design tools involving sketching capability, which would “enrich perception” of designers, while Purcell and Gero (1998, p. 390) consider drawing as an “essential part of the process of thinking about a design problem and developing a design solution”. Both studies suggest further investigations into sketching processes as they may reveal new mechanisms and tools supporting the cognitive, transformational, and creative processes.