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Organizations routinely rely on work groups for creative solutions to the problems they face. This is because solving difficult problems is often assumed to require the talents and knowledge of multiple people working together. However, much research has shown over the years that groups frequently experience dysfunction when trying to collaborate and generate creative solutions. Organizational researchers have theorized that analogical reasoning may play an important role in promoting collective creativity, but these claims are for the most part untested in the literature. In this dissertation, I attempt to answer two questions. First, does analogical reasoning provide some functional benefits for groups solving creative problems? Second, does analogical reasoning give rise to synergistic effects when creative groups collaborate during ideation and problem-solving? I assessed these questions using a laboratory study designed to find the effects of analogical reasoning in interacting and non-interacting groups, and to test for potential synergistic effects of analogical reasoning as a group-level strategy for generating creative problem solutions. Findings of the study suggest that analogical reasoning may provide some benefits for creative group outputs, and it may also create synergistic effects for creative groups. / text

This thesis is concerned with reasoning by analogy within the context of auto-mated problem solving. In particular, we consider the provision of an analogical reasoning component to a resolution theorem proving system. The framework for reasoning by analogy which we use (called Basic APS) contains three major components -the finding of analogies (analogy matching), the construction of analogical plans, and the application of the plans to guide the search of a theorem prover. We first discuss the relationship of analogy to other machine learning techniques. We then develop programs for each of the component processes of Basic APS. First we consider analogy matching. We reconstruct, analyse and crticise two previous analogy matchers. We introduce the notion of analogy heuristics in order to understand the matchers. We find that we can explain the short-comings of the matchers in terms of analogy heuristics. We then develop a new analogy matching algorithm, based on flexible application of analogy heuristics, and demonstrate its superiority to the previous matchers. We go on to consider analogical plan construction. We describe procedures for constructing a plan for the solution of a problem, given the solution of a different problem and an analogy match between the two problems. Again, we compare our procedures with corresponding ones from previous systems. We then describe procedures for the execution of analogical plans. We demon-strate the procedures on a number of example analogies. The analogies involved are straightforward for a human, but the problems themselves involve.huge search spaees, if tackled directly using resolution. By comparison with unguided search, we demonstrate the dramatic reductfon in search entaile_d by the use of an ana-logical plan. We then consider some directions for development of our analogy systems, which have not yet been implemented. Firstly, towards more flexible and power-ful execution of analogical plans. Secondly, towards an analogy system which can improve its own ability to find and apply analogies over the course of experience.

There has been a great deal of research into students' use of examples when solving problems in textbooks. Much of this work has been within the framework of analogical problem solving (APS). Indeed many researchers believe they can build adequate models of how students learn and solve exercise problems by analogy to worked examples. In the first part of this thesis I argue that this view of problem solving from examples is inappropriate and often misleading. Most students learning a subject for the first time tend to imitate examples. Imitative Problem Solving UPS)is a weak form of analogical problem solving. APS accounts assume that a solver has a representation of an earlier problem in memory. The difficulties involved are accessing that source problem and adapting it to solve the current one. WS does not assume t at the source is represented in memory, and even when the source example is available( as in textbook examples), the student may not understand it well enough to be able to adapt it to new situations. The second part of the thesis presents an interpretation theory for analysing both texts and the behaviour of solvers using those texts to solve exercise problems. The third part applies the interpretation theory to the solution explanation of a simple algebra word problem. Where an example problem fails to map directly onto an exercise problem, or where inferences have to be made to understand it, the solver win be unable to imitate the example and hence will have difficulties in proportion to the mapping inequalities between the two problems. That is, the interpretation theory allows us to predict precisely where solvers will have difficulty using an example to solve an exercise problem of the same type. The final part presents experimental tests of these predictions. The results confirm that the interpretation theory analysis can correctly identify possible areas of difficulty for the student due to a) the way an example problem is structured, and b) the nature of the transfer task.

This thesis has investigated the positive and negative analogical transfer in which we proposed three hypotheses that shed more light on the process of human behaviour in problem solving. We have found that people exhibited both positive and negative analogical transfer in the conducted study. The positive and negative transfer depends on two factor process; search space and type of transformation. This predication was tested in an experiment with four conditions by using matchsticks arithmetic problems. Results have indicated the activation of positive transfer in the problems that share the same search space and type of transformation. On the other hand, negative transfer was activated when the problem search space and type of transformation were different. Results have also indicated, in several comparisons that were made, a simultaneous activation of both positive and negative transfer.

This thesis has investigated the positive and negative analogical transfer in which we proposed three hypotheses that shed more light on the process of human behaviour in problem solving. We have found that people exhibited both positive and negative analogical transfer in the conducted study. The positive and negative transfer depends on two factor process; search space and type of transformation. This predication was tested in an experiment with four conditions by using matchsticks arithmetic problems. Results have indicated the activation of positive transfer in the problems that share the same search space and type of transformation. On the other hand, negative transfer was activated when the problem search space and type of transformation were different. Results have also indicated, in several comparisons that were made, a simultaneous activation of both positive and negative transfer.

The WMC-gF relationship has been attributed to attentional control by some, and to a learning-based account by others. The current study explores inconsistencies in solving structurally-identical problems and how such factors may explain the WMC-gF relationship. Participants completed multiple versions of the same visual-analogies problems, with some problems sharing surface features and others looking vastly different, to test the ability to generalize a rule. In addition, subsequent iterations were shown either immediately after the first presentation, after two intervening items (second presentation), or after at least 10 intervening items (third presentation). Performance on second-presentation items supported both attention and learning-based accounts and performance on third-presentation items supported only a learning-based account. Furthermore, surface similarities interacted with third-presentation item accuracy and WMC, with a stronger relationship for dissimilar looking items. These findings suggest that the ability to learn and generalize rules throughout a task may largely contribute to the WMC-gF relationship.

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The literature on analogical reasoning has established several main points of consensus, or rules about how the process works and what behaviors it produces. The first rule is that the process is employed almost universally. Second, its utilization is extremely prominent in novel situations, such as foreign policy decisions. These rules being established, it must be inferred that almost all foreign policy makers utilize analogical reasoning to some extent when faced with a unique situation. Another rule established is that once a person has defined a situation in terms of the analogy and developed an appropriate policy, he/she will rarely change his/her opinion. However, it has been well established by the groupthink theory that, when placed in a group setting, individuals can be dissuaded from their original assessments of the necessary responses to a situation. Thus it must be inferred that group processes, at least the groupthink syndrome, and analogical reasoning interact. Consequently, in order to fully understand a policy failure, which has been credited to groupthink, it is necessary to examine what cognitive processes led to both the original formulation and the adoption of the policy. Exactly how these processes interact remains unstudied. Although the literature reviewed in this study is not comprehensive on either subject, it covers the more authoritative and critically reviewed literature. Also, extensive efforts to find a similar argument to the one presented here offered few results. This implies that the correlation, if any, remains relatively understudied. Therefore, there is a need for the work at hand, in order to further understand how these prevalent cognitive processes have affected foreign policy decisions and the implications for the future.

Decision-making is a fundamental process of human thinking and behavior. In engineering design, decision-making is studied from two different points of view: users and designers. User focused design studies tend to investigate ways to better inform the design process through the elicitation of preferences or information. Designer studies are broad in nature, but usually attempt to illustrate and understand some aspect of designer behavior, such as ideation, fixation, or collaboration. Despite their power, both qualitative and quantitative research methods are ultimately limited by the fact that they rely on direct input from the research participants themselves. This can be problematic, as individuals may not be able to accurately represent what they are truly thinking, feeling, or desiring at the time of the decision. A fundamental goal in both user- and designer-focused studies is to understand how the mind works while individuals are making decisions. This dissertation addresses these issues through the use of complementary behavioral and neuroimaging experiments, uncovering insights into how the mind processes design-related decision-making and the implications of those processes. To examine user decision-making, a visual conjoint analysis (preference modeling approach) was utilized for sustainable preference judgments. Here, a novel preference-modeling framework was employed, allowing for the real time calculation of dependent environmental impact metrics during individual choice decisions. However, in difficult moral and emotional decision-making scenarios, such as those involving sustainability, traditional methods of uncovering user preferences have proven to be inconclusive. To overcome these shortcomings, a neuroimaging approach was used. Specifically, study participants completed preference judgments for sustainable products inside of a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. Results indicated that theory of mind and moral reasoning processes occur during product evaluations involving sustainability. Designer decision-making was explored using an analogical reasoning and concept development experiment. First, a crowdsourcing method was used to obtain meaningful analogical stimuli, which were validated using a behavioral experiment. Following this, fMRI was used to uncover the neural mechanisms associated with analogical reasoning in design. Results demonstrated that analogies generally benefit designers; particularly after significant time on idea generation has taken place. Neuroimaging data helped to show two distinct brain activation networks based upon reasoning with and without analogies. We term these fixation driven external search and analogically driven internal search.. Fixation driven external search shows designers during impasse, as increased activation in brain regions associated with visual processing causes them to direct attention outward in search of inspiration. Conversely, during analogically driven internal search, significant areas of activation are observed in bilateral temporal and left parietal regions of the brain. These brain regions are significant, as prior research has linked them to semantic word-processing, directing attention to memory retrieval, and insight during problem solving. It is during analogically driven internal search that brain activity shows the most effective periods of ideation by participants.