Doctoral Dissertation Research in Science of Science and Innovation Policy: Understanding the Impact of Sources of Inspiration in Creative Design: The Role of Conceptual Distance

科学与创新政策博士论文研究：理解创意设计灵感来源的影响：概念距离的作用

• 批准号: 1360013
• 负责人: Christian Schunn
• 金额: $ 1.53万
• 依托单位: University of Pittsburgh
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-06-01 至 2016-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1360013&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Science; Innovation

Innovation fundamentally begins with a good idea. But where do good ideas come from? Much research suggests that innovative breakthroughs are often inspired by past experience: things and ideas that one has interacted with in the world. However, the same experiences that can inspire innovation can also can constrain or harm innovation through focus on previously unsuccessful solutions. This project tests principles for guiding interactions with sources of inspiration to maximize their benefits and minimize their pitfalls. In particular, it focuses on the role of conceptual distance of sources. The following questions are the focus of this work: 1) Are good ideas built mainly on sources that are closely related to the problem (e.g., building on existing recycling efforts to address the problem of people throwing away electronics), or are they most often inspired by sources that are from distantly related domains (e.g., being inspired by how burrs cling to a dog's fur when designing Velcro)? 2) When considering multiple sources, should one try to ensure that the sources are similar to each other (i.e., deeply exploring one direction), or should one consider diverse sources? Intellectual MeritInnovation researchers and practitioners have formulated recommendations for these questions, but the scientific evidence for these recommendations is incomplete because it is based on small numbers of case studies or involved toy problems solved much more quickly than real-world problems. This project expands and improves the evidence base for understanding the sources of innovation by analyzing thousands of solutions to complex innovation challenges (e.g., increasing accessibility in elections, revitalizing struggling urban areas) posted on an online crowd-sourced innovation platform that required contributors to post sources of ideas. To analyze this evidence, it combines computer algorithms for automatically processing the content of text along with statistical algorithms for extracting meaning across thousands of ideas. The quality of the ideas are coded by experts for quality and novelty, and then the algorithms are used to statistically test the relationship between both source distance and source variety on ideation success. Broader ImpactsThe results of this work will have immediate implications for scientific theories of innovation, and are relevant to the design of systems for creating new innovations (e.g., online crowd-sourced innovation platforms, creativity support systems and methods). Further, the novel methods employed in this work, as well as the data generated, will be shared with other innovation researchers to facilitate more and better investigations into the science of how innovation happens. Ultimately, this work contributes to a solid scientific research base that can support innovators (both existing and aspiring) and policy makers in their efforts to address the most pressing and difficult problems facing the world today.

从根本上讲，创新始于一个好主意。但是好主意从何而来？许多研究表明，创新的突破通常受到过去经验的启发：与世界上人们互动的事物和思想。但是，可以激发创新的相同经验也可以通过专注于以前失败的解决方案来限制或损害创新。该项目测试了指导与灵感来源相互作用的原则，以最大程度地提高其利益并最大程度地减少其陷阱。特别是，它着重于来源的概念距离的作用。以下问题是这项工作的重点：1）是好主意主要建立在与问题密切相关的来源上（例如，基于现有的回收努力解决人们扔掉电子产品的问题），或者它们通常是受到远距离相关领域的启发的启发（例如，burrs burr burrs burrs burrs to dog a deak ver velcro的启发） 2）在考虑多个来源时，是否应该尝试确保来源彼此相似（即深入探索一个方向），还是应该考虑各种来源？智力熟悉研究人员和从业人员已经为这些问题提出了建议，但是这些建议的科学证据是不完整的，因为它基于少量案例研究或涉及玩具问题的速度比现实世界中的问题要快得多。该项目通过分析成千上万的复杂创新挑战解决方案（例如，在选举的可及性提高，振兴陷入困境的城市领域）来扩展并改善了理解创新来源的证据基础。为了分析这些证据，它结合了计算机算法，以自动处理文本的内容以及统计算法，用于在数千个想法中提取含义。这些想法的质量是由专家编码的质量和新颖性，然后使用算法来统计地测试源距离和源量之间的关系方面的关系。更广泛的影响这项工作的结果将对创新的科学理论产生直接影响，并且与创建新创新的系统的设计有关（例如，在线众群拥挤的创新平台，创造力支持系统和方法）。此外，这项工作中采用的新方法以及生成的数据将与其他创新研究人员共享，以促进对创新的科学进行更多更好的研究。最终，这项工作为一个扎实的科学研究基础做出了贡献，该研究基础可以支持创新者（现有和有抱负的）和政策制定者，以解决当今世界面临的最紧迫和最困难的问题。