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Do Analogies and Analogical Distance Influence Ideation Outcomes in Engineering Design?

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Applied Cognitive Science and Technology

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Abstract

The efficacy of using patents for stimulation to support creativity during the concept phase in engineering design is investigated through understanding: (a) the effects of patents for stimulation on generated concepts’ quantity, novelty, and quality and (b) the consequences of stimulating with patents from various distances of analogy on the generated concepts’ novelty and quality. A design experiment is devised in a design course, in which 105 students ideate without and with various patents to generate concepts of spherical robots. The principal observations are as follows: (a) stimulation with as compared to without patents yields more concepts, (b) stimulation with patents, other resources, or their combination as compared to no stimulation yields concepts of higher novelty, (c) stimulation with patents as compared to no patents yields concepts of higher quality, and (d) stimulation with patents, other resources, or their combination as compared to no stimulation yields concepts of higher quality, (e) when the analogical distance between patents and problem domains decreases, quality increases but novelty decreases.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), New Delhi, India

    V. Srinivasan

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, Cambridge, USA

    Binyang Song

  3. Engineering Product Development Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, Singapore

    Jianxi Luo, Mohan Rajesh Elara & Lucienne Blessing

  4. Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering - Design and Manufacturing, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Karupppasamy Subburaj

  5. College of Engineering, Design and Computing, University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus, Denver, CO, USA

    Kristin Wood

Authors
  1. V. Srinivasan
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  2. Binyang Song
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  3. Jianxi Luo
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  4. Karupppasamy Subburaj
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  5. Mohan Rajesh Elara
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  6. Lucienne Blessing
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  7. Kristin Wood
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Correspondence to V. Srinivasan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Sumitava Mukherjee

  2. School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Kamand, Himachal Pradesh, India

    Varun Dutt

  3. Department of Cognitive Science, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Narayanan Srinivasan

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Srinivasan, V. et al. (2023). Do Analogies and Analogical Distance Influence Ideation Outcomes in Engineering Design?. In: Mukherjee, S., Dutt, V., Srinivasan, N. (eds) Applied Cognitive Science and Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3966-4_13

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