Category Structure and Generative Thought

产生有用的新想法的能力是人类在技术、科学、经济和艺术领域取得成就的基础，理解新想法是如何形成的对所有这些领域都很重要。这项研究的主要目的是对新想法产生的过程进行理论解释，以及人们现有知识如何影响他们产生的新想法的形式。先前的研究表明，人们在形成新想法的过程中，通常是从记忆中提取已知概念的相当具体的实例作为起点，然后在这些实例的基础上形成新想法，但这个过程的很多方面尚不清楚。在早期的工作和其他关于人类概念本质的研究的基础上，这项新的研究试图为这一过程提供一个更连贯的观点。它超越了新观念是从现有观念中衍生出来的这一显而易见的观点，来评估人们现有观念的结构如何影响他们产生的新观念的结构。研究的目的是确定为什么某些实例比其他实例更容易被检索并用作起点，对这些实例的依赖在多大程度上限制了新形成想法的原创性，对这些实例的依赖在多大程度上是刚性的还是灵活的，以及情境因素如何影响人们从记忆中检索作为新想法起点的内容。预测基于最小阻力路径模型，该模型指出，人们倾向于依赖最能代表给定类别的特定实例。一些研究将要求参与者想象来自特定类别的新实体（例如，可能生长在另一个星球上的水果，可能被盲人儿童使用的玩具）。基本类别将包括各种各样的领域，包括工具、玩具、动物、水果、蔬菜、零食、仪式等等。配套研究将使用多种措施来确定基本类别中不同实例的代表性（例如，判断真实地球水果的典型、频繁和熟悉的具体实例）。假设最具影响力的衡量标准是具体事例出现在脑海中的容易程度。这个想法是，最容易出现在脑海中的类别实例是最经常被检索到的，作为形成新想法的候选起点。其基本原理是，产生新想法需要认知能力，人们倾向于通过追求随手可得的想法来简化任务。在这些研究中，将评估想象想法的原创性和其他属性，以确定依赖这些特定实例限制新想法形式的程度。其他研究将检验代表性是灵活的而不是固定的假设，以及最近的经历会影响在想象中检索和使用的特定实例。他们将试图通过让人们事先接触某些实例或通过展示这些实例的关键属性来影响想法的产生。换句话说，这些研究不是仅仅利用现有概念的静态结构来预测新想法的形式，而是试图通过情境中存在的其他因素来操纵新想法的形式。

The ability to generate useful new ideas underlies human accomplishment in technological, scientific, economic and artistic realms, and understanding how new ideas are formed has importance for all of those areas. The major objective of this research is to develop a theoretical account of the processes involved in novel idea generation, and the ways in which people's existing knowledge influences the form of the new ideas they generate.Previous research has shown that people often begin the process of developing new ideas by retrieving from memory fairly specific instances of known concepts to serve as starting points, and then patterning the novel idea after those instances, but much about this process remains unclear. Building on that earlier work and other research on the nature of human concepts, this new research seeks to provide a more coherent view of the process. It goes beyond the obvious point that new ideas are derived from existing ones to assess how the structure of people's existing concepts influences the structure of novel ideas they produce. Studies are designed to determine why some instances are more likely than others to be retrieved and used as starting points, the extent to which reliance on those instances constrains the originality of the newly formed ideas, the extent to which reliance on those instances is rigid versus flexible, and how situational factors influence what the person retrieves from memory as a starting point for the new idea.Predictions are based on the path-of-least-resistance model, which states that people will tend to rely on the specific instances that are most highly representative of a given category. Some studies will require participants to imagine novel entities from particular categories (e.g., fruit that might grow on another planet, toys that might be used by blind children). Base categories will include a variety of domains, including tools, toys, animals, fruit, vegetables, snack foods, rituals, and several others. Companion studies will use multiple measures to determine how representative different instances are within the base categories (e.g., how typical, frequent, and familiar specific instances of real Earth fruit are judged to be). The measure hypothesized to be most influential is how readily specific instances come to mind. The idea is that the category instances that come to mind most readily are the ones that will be most frequently retrieved as candidate starting points in formulating novel ideas. The rationale is that generating new ideas is cognitively demanding, and people tend to simplify the task by pursuing ideas that come to mind readily. In these studies, the originality and other properties of the imagined ideas will be assessed to determine the degree to which relying on such specific instances constrains the form of new ideas.Other studies will test the hypothesis that representativeness is flexible rather than fixed and that recent experiences will influence the particular instances that are retrieved and used in imagination. They will attempt to influence idea generation by giving people prior exposure to certain instances or by presenting key attributes of those instances. In other words, rather than just using the static structure of existing concepts to predict the form of novel ideas, the studies will attempt to manipulate the form of the novel ideas by way of the other factors present in the situation.