I. Chiu

Using language as related stimuli for concept generation

This paper examines the use of language, specifically verbs, as stimuli for concept generation. Because language has been shown to be important to the reasoning process in general as well as to specific reasoning processes that are central to the design process, we are investigating the relationship between language and conceptual design. The use of language to facilitate different stages of the design process has been investigated in the past. Our previous work, and the work of others, showed that ideas produced can be expressed through related hierarchical lexical relationships, so we investigated the use of verbs within these hierarchical relationships as stimuli for ideas. Participants were provided with four problems and related verb stimuli, and asked to develop concepts using the stimuli provided. The stimuli sets were generated by exploring verb hierarchies based on functional words from the problem statements. We found that participants were most successful when using lower level (more specific) verbs as stimuli, and often higher level general verbs were only used successfully in conjunction with lower level verbs. We also observed that intransitive verbs (verbs that cannot take a direct object) were less likely to be used successfully in the development of concepts. Overall, we found that the verb chosen as stimulus by the participant directly affects the success and the type of concept developed.

Biologically Meaningful Keywords for Functional Terms of the Functional Basis

Biology is recognized as an excellent source of analogies and stimuli for engineering design. Previous work focused on the systematic identification of relevant biological analogies by searching for instances of functional keywords in biological information in natural-language format. This past work revealed that engineering keywords could not always be used to identify the most relevant biological analogies as the vocabularies between biology and engineering are sufficiently distinct. Therefore, a retrieval algorithm was developed to identify potential biologically meaningful keywords that are more effective in searching biological text than corresponding engineering keywords. In our current work, we applied and refined the retrieval algorithm to translate functional terms of the functional basis into biologically meaningful keywords. The functional basis is widely accepted as a standardized representation of engineering product functionality. Therefore, our keywords could serve as a thesaurus for engineers to find biological analogies relevant to their design problems. We also describe specific semantic relationships that can be used to identify biologically meaningful keywords in excerpts describing biological phenomena. These semantic relations were applied as criteria to identify the most useful biologically meaningful keywords. Through a preliminary validation experiment, we observed that different translators were able to apply the criteria to identify biologically meaningful keywords with a high degree of agreement to those identified by the authors. In addition, we describe how fourth-year undergraduate mechanical engineering students used the biologically meaningful keywords to develop concepts for their design projects. DOI: 10.1115/1.4003249

Bridging Cross-Domain Terminology for Biomimetic Design

This work aims to improve creativity and innovation in design by facilitating the use of cross-domain analogies, particularly from biological phenomena, as stimulus for concept generation. Rather than create an enormous database of biological knowledge to specifically support engineering design, we have chosen to take advantage of the large amount of biological knowledge already in natural-language format, e.g., books, journals, etc. Relevant biological analogies for any given design problem are found by searching for instances of functional keywords that describe the intended effect of the design solution in a natural-language corpus. However, the optimal choice of keywords, or search terms, is complicated by the fact that engineers and biologists may use differing domain-specific lexicons to describe related concepts. Therefore, an engineer without sufficient background in biology may not be able to identify keywords with biological connotation that are not obviously related to the engineering keywords. This paper describes efforts to bridge the gap in lexicons by examining words that frequently collocate with searched words. The biological meaningfulness of these bridge words is characterized by how frequently they occur within definitions of biological terms in a biology dictionary. Search words identified this way may not be obvious to domain novices, and may parallel those suggested by domain experts, thus facilitating the use of cross-domain ideas to support design. Our approach of generating bridge words with biological meaningfulness is generic and can be used to bridge any disparate domains (e.g., engineering and economics). Thus designers are enabled to quickly access relevant concepts from different domains to produce more innovative solutions.Copyright

Natural Language Analysis for Biomimetic Design

Biomimetic design uses ideas from biological phenomena as inspiration in design. To support biomimetic design, biological analogies are identified by finding instances of functional keywords that describe the engineering problem in biological knowledge in natural-language format. Challenges in using this approach include the identification of keywords, and the quantity and quality of results found. WordNet, a lexical database, is used as a language framework to systematically generate alternative keywords to find matches and analyze the results of searches. Troponyms from WordNet were found to provide better and more plentiful keywords than did synonyms. Due to the potentially large number of matches to keywords, matches are analyzed to facilitate extraction of dominant biological phenomena associated with keywords. This analysis found that words that frequently collocated with keywords tend to be objects of the keyword verb or agents that carry out the actions of the keyword. Furthermore, nouns that are inanimate, e.g., substances, tend to be objects, and nouns that are animate e.g., animals, organs, tend to be agents. Distinguishing frequently collocated words and their relationships to keywords can be used to facilitate identification of biological analogies in natural-language format to support design.Copyright

INCLUDING FUNCTIONAL MODELS OF BIOLOGICAL PHENOMENA AS DESIGN STIMULI

This work explores the representation of biological phenomena as stimuli to designers for biomimetic design. We describe a study where participants were asked to solve a micro-assembly problem given a set of biological representations of leaf abscission for inspiration. The visual aids presented to the designers are investigated, and the use of functional models of biological phenomena in particular is critiqued. The designs resulting from the study are classified and theories drawn as to possible influences of the biological representations. Observations, retrospective conversations with participants, and analogical reasoning classifications are used to determine positive qualities as well as areas for improvement in representation of the biological domain. Findings suggest that designers need an explicit list of all possible inherent biological strategies, previously extracted using function structures with objective graph grammar rules. Challenges specific to this type of study are discussed, and possible improvement of representative aids are outlined.Copyright

Effects of Dichotomous Lexical Stimuli in Concept Generation

The relationship between language and reasoning motivates us to study the use of language within engineering design. This paper describes our continued investigation of language as stimuli for concept generation. Specifically we investigate dichotomous lexical stimuli that are related to the problem in either a disagreeing, incongruent manner or in an agreeing, congruent manner. This is a follow-up investigation where we extend previous experiments to include both congruent and incongruent stimuli to enable comparison of differences between designer behavior and concepts. A between-subjects think-aloud experiment was performed where participants were presented with a problem and asked to generate concepts to address the problem. Half the participants were provided with incongruent stimuli and the remaining were provided with congruent stimuli. Participants provided with incongruent stimuli used the stimulus words as verbs more often than the participants provided with congruent stimuli. Verbs possess several properties desirable for use as design stimuli including the increased introduction of new lexicalized concepts to the concept generation process. When two independent raters scored the concepts, there was a positive correlation between the raters that concepts developed with incongruent stimuli were more novel. Understanding the effects of different lexical stimulus types on concept generation contributes to the development of design support tools that exploit the relationship between language and reasoning to increase design novelty.Copyright

Extraction and Transfer of Biological Analogies for Creative Concept Generation

Biomimetic design, which borrows ideas from nature to solve engineering problems, has been identified as a promising method of concept generation. However, there are still many challenges. Previous research has revealed that novice designers have difficulties in extracting the analogical strategy present in biological phenomena and mapping the strategy even if the strategy is provided. This research, therefore, attempts to develop tools that could assist novice designers to execute effective biomimetic design and ultimately generate creative concepts. In particular, we investigated the use of tools developed by the authors: 1) a causal relation template that helps retrieve relevant strategies from biological descriptions and 2) instructional mapping rules that aid structural mapping of the strategies to design concepts and abstraction of the enabling functions of the strategies. We found that the participants who used both tools generated concepts with significant correlation between the correctness of analogical transfer and creativity of the concepts. This effect was not observed for the participants who only used the first tool, mainly because of the participants’ inability to explore enabling solutions for the applied biological strategy and generate concepts that are wholly developed. To encourage generation of creative ideas in biomimetic design, the tools must be devised to facilitate abstraction of biological strategies, enable effective mapping of strategies from biology to engineering, and discourage design fixation.Copyright

Understanding the Use of Language Stimuli in Concept Generation

Natural language, which is closely linked to thought and reasoning, has been recognized as important to the design process. However, there is little work specifically on understanding the use of language as design stimuli. This paper presents the results of an experiment where verbal protocols were used to elicit information on how designers used semantic stimuli presented as words related to the problem during concept generation. We examined stimulus use at the word level with respect to part-of-speech classes, e.g., verbs, nouns and noun modifiers, and also how stimuli syntactically relate to other words and phrases that represent ideas produced by the participant. While all stimuli were provided in verb form, we found that participants often used stimuli in noun form, but that more new ideas were introduced while using stimuli as verbs and noun modifiers. Frequent use of stimuli in noun form appears to confirm that people tend to think in terms of objects. However, noun use of stimuli introduced fewer new ideas and therefore contributed less to concept formation in our study. This work highlights a possible gap between how people may tend to think, e.g., in terms of nouns, and how new ideas may be more frequently introduced e.g., through verbs and noun modifiers. Addressing this gap may enable development of a language-based concept generation support system to encourage innovative and creative solutions for engineering problems.Copyright

Supporting Biomimetic Design by Embedding Metadata in Natural-Language Corpora

Biology is a good source of analogies for engineering design. One approach of retrieving biological analogies is to perform keyword searches on natural-language sources such as books, journals, etc. A challenge in retrieving information from natural-language sources is the potential requirement to process a large number of search results. This paper describes how inserting metadata such as part-of-speech, word sense and lexicographical data for each word in a natural-language source can help users identify relevant biological stimuli for biomimetic design. Although this research is still exploratory, initial qualitative observations demonstrate successful identification and separation of biological phenomena relevant to either desired functions or desired qualities. In addition, by incorporating the aforementioned metadata, we can automatically remove search results where search keywords act on abstract nouns or where keywords are used in irrelevant senses. The benefits of embedding metadata are demonstrated through a case study on the redesign of a fuel cell bipolar plate. In this case study, our method can be used to hide 64% of the search results that are unlikely to contain useful biological phenomena, reducing the effort to systematically identify relevant biological analogies.© 2010 ASME