MOD: Stimulating Creative Insight - A Cohesive Model of Design Innovation Across Individuals, Groups and Computer Agents

创新发生在设计师的头脑中，在设计团队中，在计算设计引擎中，每一个都有功能上的相似性。该项目通过正式理解个体认知在群体环境中的作用及其与过程的计算机模拟的关系来研究创造力和创新的关键要素，以增强创新过程。对这些相互作用的研究揭示了这些复杂的认知和社会相互作用的结构的巨大一致性，并且阐明该结构的形式及其在创新过程模型中的运作动力是本项目的主要目标。 这项研究可能会显着影响如何设计创新的结构和追求在工业环境中。因此，在创新领域的这种独特的跨学科研究是一个适当的匹配SciSIP使命。这个项目基于这样一个假设：一个人正在作为团队努力的一部分解决一个困难的设计问题。通常，在单个心理表征中的迭代搜索会有所改进，但不会在该表征中产生满足设计目标的解决方案。在这一点上，个人达到一个僵局或块。为了克服这种僵局，必须出现一种新的表征，这种表征是通过寻找一种新的表征，再加上来自环境的输入而产生的。在个人层面上，在解决问题的过程中，在适当的时候，适当的刺激可以克服僵局，不太早也不太晚。该模型假设团队成员合作发展一个共同的表征，在其中找到一个解决方案，个人的表征影响其他群体成员的表征，并有助于整体的群体表征，和小组讨论刺激个人和有效的群体表征的变化，作为外部环境刺激的群体输入，以克服上述僵局。然后，个人使用并开发自己的代表，有时与团队合作，在他们寻找设计任务的解决方案时挑战并扩展团队的代表。软件代理可以模拟和支持组的过程，提供更深入的理解的过程和手段，以创建一种新型的设计辅助工具的创新水平。软件代理使用一个给定的表示，但是，基于协作策略，该表示可以随着代理作为一个团队一起工作而发展。本研究开发：（1）理解在整个设计过程中发生的常见结构和动态操作;（2）更好地理解人类如何解决困难的设计问题;（3）更深入地理解人们如何表示设计问题以及改变问题表示的方法，以便找到创造性的解决方案;（4）建立在这些发现基础上的计算机工具，以改进设计问题的搜索;（5）理解个人问题解决和群体问题解决之间的关系;（6）群体设计过程的方法和算法;（7）新的方法，以帮助人类在创造过程中，无论是作为个人，并通过更有效地连接个人在团队中，作为团队，以便授权的过程;（8）出现了一个经验锚定的理论模型的个人和群体的认知设计。对个人如何参与和适应创造性的团队问题解决，以及团队如何发展成为一个更有效的个人集合的更深入的理解是这项工作的一个更广泛的成果。认知理解将告知创造性问题解决，特别是设计的认知的基本理解。 基于设计代理的计算工具可以有效地产生创新的解决方案。

Innovation occurs within the minds of designers, within design teams and within computational design engines, each having functional similarities. This project studies the critical elements of creativity and innovation by formally understanding the role of individual cognition in group environments and its relation to computational simulations of the process to enhance the innovation process. An examination of these interactions reveals a great congruence in the structuring of these complex cognitive and social interactions, and the elucidation of the form of that structure and the dynamics of its operation into a model of the innovation process is the major goal of this project. This study could significantly influence how design innovation is structured and pursued in industrial settings. As such, this unique interdisciplinary research in the area of innovation is an appropriate match to the SciSIP mission. This project rests on the assumption that an individual is working on a difficult design problem as part of a team effort. Often, iterative search within an individual mental representation makes improvements but yields no solution within that representation that meets the design goals. At that point the individual reaches an impasse or block. To overcome the impasse a new representation must emerge, one that occurs through search for a new representation coupled with inputs from the environment. At the individual level impasses can be overcome by appropriate stimuli at the appropriate time in the solution process, not too early and not too late. The model posits that team members collaborate to develop a common representation within which a solution is found. The individual's representations influence other group members' representations and contribute to the overall group representation, and group discussions stimulate changes to both the individual and effective group representation, the group inputs acting as the external environmental stimuli to overcome the impasses mentioned above. Individuals then work with and develop their own representation, and at times collaborate with the group to both challenge and expand the group's representation as they search for solutions to the design task. Software agents can emulate and support the group process, providing deeper understanding of the process and means to create a new type of design assist tools at the innovation level. The software agents use a given representation but, based on collaborative strategies, that representation can evolve as the agents work together as a team. This study develops: (1) an understanding of the common structural and dynamic operations that occur throughout the design process; (2) a better understanding of how humans solve difficult design problems; (3) a deeper understanding of how people represent design problems and a resultant method for changing representations of a problem so as to find creative solutions; (4) a computer tools that build on these findings to improve search of a design problem; (5) an understanding of the relationship between individual problem solving and group problem solving; (6) a methodology and algorithm for group design processes; (7) new methods to assist humans in the creative process both as individuals and, through more efficaciously linking individuals within teams, as teams, so as to empower that process; and (8) the emergence of an empirically anchored theoretical model of individual and group cognition in design. Formalizing a deeper understanding of how individuals participate and adapt in creative team problem solving, and how the team develops into a more efficient set of individuals is one broader outcome of this work. The cognitive understanding will inform the fundamental understanding of the cognition of creative problem solving and in particular design. Computational tools based on design agents can effectively generate innovative solutions.