Collaborative Research: Pilot Research on Language-Based Strategies for Creative Problem Solving

当人们重新表述一个问题空间时，出现了以前看不到的结构。这个过程可以分解为两个步骤：人们必须首先识别并开发新的结构。我们认为，这两个步骤都可以通过创造性名词化的经验应用来改进。在这里，名词化是指识别一个新概念并对其进行适当命名的过程。这个项目证明了名词化的经验可以提高问题解决能力，成功的名词化训练和经验有可能提高人的内在动机，从而提高问题解决的创造性方面的有效性。同时，该项目探索了名词化作为一种战略在强化学习环境中增强机器学习代理的潜力。受动物学习研究的启发，强化学习是人工智能研究的一个分支，致力于创建激励的、学习的代理。在强化学习的背景下，名词化有可能创造一个一级宾语，可以直接操作、记录、分析和与其他宾语组合形成更高级别的结构。此外，强化学习的研究人员最近开始考虑如何通过探索问题空间的内在动机来增强学习。因此，名词化在强化学习环境中既可以作为一种直接策略发挥作用，也可以通过内在动机间接发挥作用。这个项目最重要的更广泛的影响将是提供一种新的干预措施，提高单独工作或在合作小组中工作的问题解决者的创造力和效率。如果成功，干预措施的相对简单性和普遍适用性将使其成为广泛传播给不同人群的首选方案。

When people reformulate a problem space, previously unseen structure emerges. This process can be decomposed into two steps: People must first recognize and then exploit novel structure. We suggest that both of these steps can be improved by experienced application of creative nominalization. Here, nominalization refers to the process of recognizing a novel concept and naming it appropriately. This project demonstrates that experience in nominalization can improve problem solving and that successful training and experience on nominalization has the potential to enhance people?s intrinsic motivation, and thereby effectiveness, with respect to creative aspects of problem solving. In parallel, the project explores the potential for nominalization as a strategy to enhance machine-learning agents in reinforcement learning environments. Inspired by research on animal learning, reinforcement learning is a branch of artificial intelligence research concerned with creating motivated, learning agents. In the reinforcement-learning setting, nominalization has the potential to create a first-class object, something that can be directly manipulated, recorded, analyzed, and composed with other objects to form higher-order structures. In addition, reinforcement-learning researchers have recently begun to consider how learning might be enhanced with intrinsic motivation to explore problem spaces. Thus nominalization can function in reinforcement-learning settings both as a direct strategy and indirectly via intrinsic motivation. The most significant broader impact of this project will be to provide a new intervention that will enhance the creativity and efficacy of problem solvers working alone or in collaborative groups. If successful, the relative simplicity of the intervention and its general applicability would make it a prime candidate for wide dispersal to people in disparate walks of like.