Overcoming Impasses in Design Problem Solving: Environmental Input and Sources of Design Breakthroughs

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Most people have had the experience of ''getting stuck'' while trying to solve a hard problem. In the context of designing a new kind of low-emissions vehicle, for instance, a designer might reach an impasse in trying to figure out how to optimally position the fuel tank, given the many other constraints on vehicle design that must also be satisfied. Impasses in problem-solving can occur when the problem solver is fixated on a single representation of the problem space. Such impasses can be overcome only if one steps back and changes how the problem space is represented. With support of the National Science Foundation, Drs. Cagan and Kotovsky are investigating cognitive and technological factors that influence how problem spaces in the domain of engineering design are represented, and how such representations can be changed in the face of an impasse. Their work promises to advance our understanding of how people overcome significant hurdles in creative problem solving -- how people find the ''aha'' that helps them solve difficult design problems that lead to new innovations. The project consists of laboratory work to collect experimental data on problem solving under impasse conditions, coupled with agent-based computational models of core cognitive processes involved in problem solving. An important goal of these research activities is to create knowledge that can be used in the classroom and workplace to more effectively stimulate human creativity, and provide a platform for computer design tools that advise and support the innovation process.