What You See Is What You Get: Effects of Provocative
Stimuli in Creative Invention
Steven M. Smith, Nicholas W. Kohn and Jami J. Shah
What causes impasses, and what facilitates resolution of impasses in creative invention? What are the effects of information external to people engaged in creative discovery? Material in one’s environment that can add
information, ideas, or knowledge to the discovery process are provocative
stimuli. Do provocative stimuli cause cognitive impasses, or do they facilitate resolution of impasses? New experiments address these research questions in the context of creative design and invention. The results may influence theoretical models of discovery and innovation, and may be
instrumental in the development of effective methods for improving and
accelerating creative thinking in invention and design.
Impasses and Provocative Stimuli in Creative Design
What causes impasses, and what facilitates resolution of impasses in the
creative discovery process? In particular, what are the effects of information or knowledge external to the person engaged in creative discovery.
Material in one’s environment that can add information, ideas, or
knowledge to the discovery process are provocative stimuli. On the one
hand, creative ideas can better emerge when one is provoked by the ideas
of others. On the other hand, viewing the ideas of others can cause fixation, constraining and blocking creative thinking. Do provocative stimuli
cause cognitive impasses, or do they facilitate resolution of impasses?
When do provocative stimuli help and when do they hinder impasses?
What types of provocative stimuli are useful for resolving impasses, and at
which stage of the discovery process should one or another be used? In
particular, do provocative stimuli that encourage abstract thinking also facilitate impasse resolution in the course of creative invention? Our new
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S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
experiments address these research questions in the context of creative design and invention. The results of the experiments may influence theoretical models of discovery and innovation, and may also be instrumental in
the development of effective methods for improving and accelerating creative thinking, an outcome likely to impact science, business, education, literature and the arts, invention, and design.
History is rife with cases in which momentous insights were triggered
by chance encounters with provocative stimuli. Archimedes’ discovery of
the displacement principle was triggered when he submerged himself in
his bath, Picasso’s inspiration for his famous painting Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon was triggered by a chance visit to an African art exhibit, and
NASA engineer James Crocker’s idea for the Hubble space telescope repair was triggered by a chance encounter with an adjustable shower head.
Encounters with hints in lab studies can also trigger insights that can resolve experimentally induced impasses. Hints and solutions to problems
given during incubation intervals can enhance impasse resolution [1], [2],
[3].
On the other hand, a body of research shows that rather than provoking novel and creative ideas, outside stimuli can sometimes obstruct
problem solving by suggesting wrong solutions, or inhibit creative idea
generation by promoting constrained lines of thinking [4], [5]. Experimental induction of impasses with stimuli related to experimental tasks has
been demonstrated in memory [6], problem solving [7], [8], creative idea
generation [9], and engineering design [10], [11].
New experiments found that non-expert participants were quite
capable of some degree of creative conceptual design in an invention task.
Multiple sketches of ideas tended to show little variation from one idea to
the next, but when participants viewed a provided sketch, their subsequent
ideas tended to include features of the provided provocative stimuli. This
conformity effect could be seen to persist for multiple ideas, and was seen
whether provocative stimuli were typical examples from the norm, or unusual examples. Interestingly, subjective judgments of participants’ own
ideas were judged to be typical whether the ideas were typical or atypical
examples from the norm, an example of hindsight bias in creative invention.
Fixation and Conformity Effects
It has been shown that stimuli related to incorrect or misleading solutions
and solution strategies can increase fixation and conformity in creative
What You See Is What You Get
3
idea generation, yet we also know, paradoxically, that there are times in
which chance encounters with provocative stimuli appear to trigger creative insights. What we do not yet understand is when an encountered stimulus is likely to provoke new ideas and insights, and when it is likely to
stultify creative thinking. We also know that abstraction, which can be enhanced by explicit instructions and different-domain analogies, can improve creative originality and solutions to insight puzzle-problems, and
that creative design, in particular, benefits from abstraction. We do not
know whether encounters with provocative stimuli affect creative ideation
metrics similarly at all stages of creative design in a realistic conceptual
design task, nor do we know how persistent such effects would be.
A more realistic version of conformity effects in creative idea generation was reported by Jansson & Smith [10], who observed and described a phenomenon called design fixation in engineering students and
professional engineers. Jansson & Smith [10] gave engineering students
open-ended tasks, asking them to design a bicycle rack, a measuring cup
for the blind, or an inexpensive spill-proof coffee cup. Half (the Design
Fixation Group) first saw a sample design, and the other half (the Control
Group) saw no example. The designs in the Fixation Groups were far more
likely than the Control Group to incorporate features of the examples in
their designs. Design fixation effects occurred even when features of the
example were negative ones, and have been found in many other reported
studies [12], [13], [14]. Design fixation effects were also reported in professional engineers, underscoring the ubiquity and importance of the design fixation effect.
Incubation as Relief from Fixation
Effects of taking breaks and changing contexts are called incubation effects. Incubation is counterintuitive because it is not time working on a
problem that helps, but rather time away from the problem. Incubation effects can help people overcome initial impasses in memory [15], [16],
problem solving [17], [18], and creative ideation [19]. Smith & Blankenship tested the forgetting fixation hypothesis, that incubation can be observed if incubation periods permit forgetting of inappropriate responses
that come to mind. This theory predicts that the more incubation causes
one to forget fixation, the more likely resolution will occur. Smith &
Blankenship [8] found if fixation was induced, incubation facilitated forgetting of experimental blockers and increased resolution of initially unsolved problems as a function of longer incubation intervals. Incubation effects have also been found when chance encounters occur with analogs of
initially unsolved problems [18], a finding consistent with the notion that
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S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
appropriate provocative stimuli can trigger a release from fixation effects.
In a joint study, Shah & Smith found significant interactions between incubation and other factors [19].
Collaborative Sketching
No remedies for fixation are certain to work, including incubation breaks
and context shifting, but there are other solutions for fixation. Collaborative sketching (C-Sketch) is an idea generation method that was proposed
originally in 1993 [20] as an extension of Method 6-3-5 [21]. The method
is designed for use after the problem definition and clarification when preliminary ideas need to be generated. In the C-Sketch method, a team of x
participants (typically 5) work on developing solutions (expressed as
sketches) to a problem. Participants, seated around a table, work independently, developing a sketch of their idea for a predetermined length of
time (cycle-time). At the end of each sketching cycle, the sketch from the
first participant is passed to the second, from the second to the third and so
on. Each sketch recipient is then free to add, modify, or delete any part of
the sketch they received. There are (x-1) sketch exchanges so that all the
sketches are passed sequentially through the team. There is no direct
communication between team members except through sketches that are
exchanged. At the conclusion of the exercise, the group has x idea sketches
each of which was originated by one of the team members but has been
modified/enhanced by all others. There are two intrinsic variables in CSketch: the time allocated for sketching in each cycle and the number of
members in the team. These two variables may be adjusted to match the
complexity of the problem.
The development and rationale of C-Sketch along with experimental data collected from five years of research was reported in [20]. C-Sketch was
based on the premise that sketching is important to ideation, collaboration
of ideas provides diversity in design, and that provocative stimuli from
other idea sketches may prove to be catalysts in developing creative new
constructs. There is both anecdotal and experimental evidence supporting
the beneficial effect of pictures on ideation [22], [23], [24]. Larkin and Simon [25] showed that sketches are useful in problem solving because of
their conciseness of representing data compared to sentential descriptions
by comparing the number of computations and searches that have to be
made when the same problem is represented in terms of sentences and in
terms of sketches. The relationship of visual thinking/imagery, provocative
stimuli, and flexible representation with creative design has been established in various studies in creative cognition, visual imagery, and design
What You See Is What You Get
5
protocol studies [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]. Provocative
stimuli allow designers to combine multiple concepts in unexpected ways.
Designer feedback through learned assessment from silent criticism provides the designers with implied evaluation of their designs, reinforcing
generation of quality ideas. Also, it was found that while many design
modifications were misinterpreted from the original intent, the misinterpretations served as launching pads for new ideas. It has been shown that CSketch prevents design fixation, but why or how this happens is not
known. In assigning the variable values in C-Sketch, number of cycles affects the number of features at each pass depending upon feature type. Experiments have shown that C-Sketch outperformed Method 6-3-5 in the
three measured areas of quality, novelty, and variety of designs generated,
and was better than Gallery Method in novelty and variety [20].
When solutions to problems are known by those administering the
problems, it has often been found that hints given to participants in impasse states can trigger resolution of the impasses. Unfortunately, when
impasses are experienced by scientists, inventors, or professionals engaged
in creative innovation and discovery in any field, hints and solutions cannot be suggested because solutions are not yet known. Can resolution of
impasses be triggered by encounters with clues when solutions are not
known?
Abstraction and Fixation
Abstract thinking is one approach for resolving impasses; when one is fixated on prematurely concrete ideas that carry implicit assumptions, abstraction can help focus people on more essential aspects of problems that
may not include the conceptual baggage causing the impasses. Abstract
thinking can be very difficult, but it can be necessary for resolving impasses. Simply telling people to think more abstractly, however, is not
likely to bring about the abstract thought that will resolve an impasse.
Ward’s Path of Least Resistance (PLR) model [34], [35], [36], [37], [38]
states that in creative ideation, people usually begin by retrieving basic
level exemplar from what seems the appropriate category, and then projecting the features of those exemplars onto the idas that they are developing. This exemplar-guided path is so compelling that people tend to follow
the PLR even when asked to make their ideas “wildly different” from existing exemplars of the category [39]. Findings of design fixation [13],
[10], [14] are consistent with this PLR model, assuming that experimenterpresented examples play the same role in the ideation process as the initial
retrieval of exemplars from memory. Ward, Patterson & Sifonis [34]
showed that instructions that guided people to think more abstractly and to
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S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
try to avoid thinking about specific examplars led to creative ideas that
were more original. Likewise, Chrysikou and Weisberg [13] found similar
benefits with what they called “defixation instructions.” Others have also
found various types of instructions aimed at increased abstraction can increase the originality, and in some cases, the quality of creative ideas [40],
[41].
Another way to make creative ideation more abstract is through
the use analogies; greater abstraction is involved in more distant betweendomain analogies as compared to local analogies [42]. In creative conceptual design, both within-domain and between-domain analogies have been
observed to be used by real teams of designers [18]. In Christensen &
Schunn’s study, when designers worked from prototypes (i.e., exemplars
of design ideas) they generated few between-domain analogies, indicating
that exemplars can constrain ideation by limiting abstraction that can occur
through analogizing. Fixating exemplars created by the designers, themselves, made them less likely to think abstractly. More abstract analogies
have been observed when designers refer to either sketches or ideas unsupported by external representations. Furthermore, Christensen & Schunn
[18] found that analogies shown to experimental participants facilitated solutions to puzzle problems.
Hypotheses in the Present Experimental Study
In the present study, we explored whether it is possible to study creative
conceptual design processes by giving non-experts a simplified version of
a task usually carried out by engineering design students. The task requires
participants to create and sketch designs, using a specified set of materials,
that can traverse the greatest possible distance from a given starting point.
The problem is fertile enough to allow many possible solutions, but requires no technical knowledge. This invention task has been used successfully to study creative conceptual design in engineering design students
[43], and has been used to validate ideation metrics of design studies.
We hypothesized that the introduction of sketches during this creative design task would provoke participants to create more original designs
when the provided sketches were normatively novel, and that more commonplace designs would be created when the provided sketches were normatively typical. We also hypothesized that the effects of provided sketches would carry over from one design of participants to their subsequent
designs.
What You See Is What You Get
7
Experiment 1 served as a test of the design task’s appropriateness
for non-expert undergraduate students; could non-experts create sensible
designs in a relatively brief time (one hour) that would have any relevance
to more realistic design? Or, would most participants be unable to generate
plausible designs in this task? This question is important for future studies
of creative design, and boils down to what has been termed “alignment” in
studies of creative cognition [44], the question of relevance and generality
among different levels of task complexity and ecological validity. That is,
are the results of studies of simpler laboratory tasks and problems generalizable to more complex and realistic design contexts? Participants’ designs
in Experiment 1 also served as a norm for comparison in subsequent studies that use this simplified design task, so that we could determine what
types of provocative stimuli would be typical for the population of nonexperts, and what stimuli would be novel, or low in normative frequency.
Experiment 2 used the same simplified design task, and tested the
effects of providing sketches of designs as examples for experimental participants. Example designs were selected from either novel (low frequency) responses or typical (high frequency) responses in Experiment 1. Four
different dimensions of designs were considered in determining the novelty or typicality of designs: Medium (e.g., whether the designed vehicle
travels along the ground, through the air, etc.), Motion (e.g., rolling, floating, flying, etc.), Propulsion (e.g., jet propulsion, spring recoil, etc.), and
Number of Parts (e.g., one connected vehicle vs. a two-part launcher-pluscapsule). The typical example design provided in Experiment 2 was selected to have the most normatively common features, whereas the novel example embodied low frequency features of these dimensions. In addition, a
second independent variable in Experiment 2 was the stage of providing
the example design; that is, the example was provided either before the
participant’s first sketch, before the second sketch, or before the third
sketch.
Experiment 1: Creative Design in Non-Experts
Experiment 1 Questions
What are normative responses that non-expert students generate in a creative invention task in successive stages? Do the values of the critical dimensions in these inventions show greater or less novelty in successive responses?
General Description of Experiment 1
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S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
In Experiment 1, non-expert participants were given an invention task.
Each participant was asked to generate four drawings in sequence during
an hour-long session, with each drawing representing an idea for the device. These responses were used for a normative control condition, and to
help us generate specific stimuli to be used in subsequent experiments.
The same procedure was repeated for all 4 ideas, each represented
by labeled sketches. Each idea was influenced by the participant’s own initial ideas, that is, their own sketches. In contrast, sketches in Experiment 2
originated outside of the subject, that is, they were experimenter-provided
stimuli. Thus, Experiment 1 provides an appropriate control condition or
comparison condition for Experiment 2; the procedure was the same for
those who did and did not see provocative stimuli. The exception is that influences of sketches seen in Experiment 1 did not originate from outside
the participant’s ideas, whereas influences in subsequent experiments were
from outside sources. Thus, a large number of participants was needed in
Experiment 1 for a stable and representative norm for comparison with
performance in numerous treatment conditions.
From the responses given in Experiment 1, we calculated normative scores of Novelty. The novelty measure considered Propulsion, Medium of Travel, Motion, and Number of Parts. For example, we calculated
the number of ideas that use rolling vs. sliding vs. flying as means of propulsion. In addition, these scores were analyzed as a function of output order (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th drawing).
Because the theory of remote association [45] describes idea generation as proceeding from highly typical and frequent associations to less
common responses, the theory therefore predicted that the novelty of the
means of propulsion, medium of travel, and motion would increase as a
function of output order; that is, greater novelty for later sketches. Alternatively, the fixation hypothesis predicted that each idea generated will influence subsequent ideas, leading to greater conformity (less novelty), but
greater detail on later generated ideas.
Experiment 1 Method
Participants
Participants from this study came from an introductory psychology course
and received credit towards course completion. These students had the option of signing up for the present experiment or other experiments being
offered in the psychology department. Sessions for the experiment ranged
What You See Is What You Get
9
from 4-10 participants at a time. A total of 56 students participated in this
experiment. Nine of the participants’ data was not included for analysis
because these participants violated the rules of the task.
Materials
Participants were provided with four sheets of paper and an instruction
sheet, which described the task and the materials allowed.
Design & Procedure
Experiment 1 involved one within-subjects (repeated measures) variable
with four levels, Design Output Order (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th design). After 12
minutes the participant was interrupted, and given the following instructions.
Participants were given a few minutes to read through the instruction sheet and to ask the experimenter any questions regarding the task
they were to perform. Following this, participants were given the first
sketch sheet and asked to complete a sketch of their device and to provide
a written description of how the device operated. After 12 minutes, the
experimenter instructed the participants to stop working on their sketch.
Participants were then provided the second sketch sheet and were instructed to “look over your first idea sketch. Your second attempt can be based
on the first sketch as much or as little as you like.” After 12 minutes, the
experimenter collected the first sketch sheet. Participants were given the
third sketch sheet and were instructed to “please look over your second
idea sketch. Your second attempt can be based on the second sketch as
much or as little as you like.” After 12 minutes, the experimenter stopped
the participants and collected their second sketch sheet. Participants were
given the fourth sketch sheet and were instructed to “please look over your
third idea sketch. Your second attempt can be based on the third sketch as
much or as little as you like.” After 12 minutes, the experimenter collected
both the 3rd and 4th sketches.
Instructions to Participants
In this experiment, you will create ideas for an invention. Draw sketches
of your ideas, and label the parts and their functions in as much detail as
possible as you go. Describe the operation of your device; how will it
work? Design and build a device to travel the farthest perpendicular distance from the starting line. The only source of power is a standard inflatable balloon.
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S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
1) The device is to be setup at the starting line for “launch.” No part
of the device can be beyond the starting line before launch (that
includes guide chutes).
2) After launch past the starting line, you cannot have any contact
with the device. A diagram showing this task is shown below.
Fig. 1 Diagram for All Participants
1) You can use any combination of the materials from the list given
below
2) You can cut and deform the materials in any way you want
3) You can also use rubber bands, adhesives, staples, scotch tape,
solder, nails, and screws, but their use is limited to making joints
only
4) The device must not be any larger than 24 x 24 x 24 in
5) The distance D will be the shortest distance between the final
resting point and the starting line.
Materials List (pictured below)
Cardboard
White Styrofoam (1” thick)
Plywood (1/4” thick”)
Hardwood dowel (1/2” diameter X 3’ length)
Hardwood dowel (3/8” diameter X 3’ length)
White PVC pipe (½” diameter x ¾’ length)
Black plastic tubing (1/4” diameter x ½’ length)
9-gauge steel wire
What You See Is What You Get
11
Fig. 2 Materials Illustrations
Experiment 1 Results
Perhaps the most notable result of Experiment 1 is that student participants
were capable of generating plausible solutions to the design problem in
spite of the fact that they were given only 12-min per design sketch, and
the fact that they had no expertise in design. Nearly all of the participants
were able to generate four design sketches within the hour-long experiment. Examples of participant-generated design sketches are shown below.
Fig. 3Participant-Generated Design Sketches from Experiment 1
Frequency Norms
The frequencies for Propulsion, Motion, Medium, and # Parts, are below.
S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
12
Table 1 Frequency Norms for Scored Design Features
Propulsion
Catapult
Gravity
Jet
Propeller
Slingshot
#
Parts
One
Two
Frequency
2
3
159
1
23
Frequency
131
57
Motion
Float
Fly
Roll
Slide
Medium
Air
Land
Water
Frequency
6
59
81
42
Frequency
59
123
6
Heading level 3
Ideation measures developed and validated by Shah [46] , [44] were used
in evaluating the novelty on each of the major dimensions of participants’
inventions1. Scores ranged from 0 to 10; higher scores mean superior novelty. For each idea, four attributes from the problem statement were identified: Propulsion (i.e., impulse mechanism), Medium of travel (e.g., fly,
roll, float), Motion (e.g., sliding, rolling), and Number of disjoint parts
(i.e., one, two, etc.). For Novelty scoring, instances of each solution method were counted across all participants. The more often a particular solution method was used, the lower the novelty score assigned. These Novelty
scores were determined independently for each of the four attributes (i.e.,
Propulsion, Medium, Motion, and Number of Parts), and an overall Novelty score will be calculated for each idea. The Novelty score for a given response (e.g., Medium = water) was calculated as 10/(# participants giving
that particular response), yielding a maximum independent novelty score
Other ideation metrics were not analysed; Quantity and Variety were not relevant to this experiment since a fixed number of sketches was required, and Quality
scores could not be validated for non-experts.
1
What You See Is What You Get
13
of 10. Each idea’s overall novelty score was computed. These scores were
used in Experiment 2 to select participant-generated design sketches that
were very novel vs. very typical (low novelty), and to score the novelty of
design sketches that varied as a function of experimental conditions. The
Novel and Typical design sketches used as examples in Experiment 2 are
shown below.
Fig. 4 Novel Participant-Generated Design Sketch from Experiment 1
Fig. 5 Typical Participant-Generated Design Sketch from Experiment 1
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S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
Experiment 2: Design Fixation and Timing of Examples in NonExperts
Experiment 2 Questions
Are all critical dimensions of non-expert inventions (i.e., propulsion, medium, movement, # parts) susceptible to design fixation, as induced by examples? Are higher or lower frequency examples more susceptible to fixation effects? What are the effects of the time in the creative invention
process when an example idea is given? Do example stimuli seen before
the first sketch is made fixate creative thinking, but promote creativity if
they are seen after sketches have been attempted?
General Description of Experiment 2
The experiment design used two between-subjects variables, Type of Example (Novel vs. Typical), and Example Position (before the 1st Sketch,
2nd Sketch, or 3rd Sketch), with a total of six groups. There will be approximately 20 participants per group. The one within-subjects (repeated
measures) variable was Design Output Order (1st, 2nd, and 3rd); three
sketches were requested from each participant.
The fixation hypothesis predicted that designs would exhibit more
of a particular design feature for participants who have seen examples containing that feature, a constraining effect on the novelty and variety of designs. Alternatively, the provocation hypothesis predicted that exemplified
features would increase novelty and variety if normatively low frequency
features are viewed; rather than constrain the creative process, provocative
stimuli that go beyond what the inventor is likely to think of should help
creative thinking. It was also of interest to see if the effects of examples
persist across subsequent drawings of ideas.
Experiment 2 Method
Participants
Participants from this study came from an introductory psychology course
and received credit towards course completion. These students had the option of signing up for the present experiment or other experiments being
offered in the psychology department. Sessions for the experiment ranged
What You See Is What You Get
15
from 4-10 participants at a time. A total of 139 students participated in
this experiment. Twenty of the participants’ data was not included for
analysis because these participants violated the rules of the task. Participants were randomly placed into one of the six experimental groups.
Materials
For this experiment, participants were provided with three sheets of paper
in which to complete their sketches. Also, an instruction sheet was given
to participants which described the task and the materials allowed. Two
example sketches were used in this experiment. Both of these sketches
were replications of designs produced by participants in Experiment 1.
The “typical” example was one that had the following features: land-based,
rolling, jet-powered, 1 part. The “novel” example was one that had the
following features: air-based, flying, jet-powered, multiple parts.
Design & Procedure
The procedure was similar to the one for Experiment 1. After reading
through the instruction sheet, participants completed a number of sketch
attempts. Participants were given 12 minutes per sketch attempt and completed a total of 3 sketches. Depending upon the condition, participants
received a novel or a typical example sketch prior to sketch 1, sketch 2, or
sketch 3. Each participant received only one example sketch and this
sketch was provided during only one of the sketch attempts. The example
sketch was given to the participants at the beginning of the sketch attempt
and they were told, “Here is an example of a design another participant
drew for this task. Please look over this example. Your X sketch can be
based on the example as much or as little as you like.” Another difference
from Experiment 1 was that when working on a sketch, participants could
not view their previous sketch. Participants were instructed that, “Your Y
attempt can be based on the X sketch as much or as little as you like.”
Experiment 2 contained six experimental groups. It was conducted via a 3 (when example sketch was provided: before sketch 1, sketch 2,
sketch 3) X 2 (example type: novel vs. typical) design. This yielded the
following experimental groups: novel-1st, novel-2nd, novel-3rd, typical-1st,
typical-2nd, and typical-3rd. At the end of the session participants were
asked whether they found the example provided to be a good (workable) or
a poor (not workable) solution to the design problem.
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S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
Experiment 2 Results
The three sketches of each participant were scored in terms of the novelty
of each Design Feature, using the novelty norms from Experiment 1. In
most, but not all conditions, viewing a Novel Example increased the expected novelty of the immediately succeeding sketch, whereas viewing a
Typical Example decreased the expected Novelty. The novelty scores of
responses in Experiment 2 are shown below in Table 2.
What You See Is What You Get
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Table 2 Novelty Scores for Design Features as a Function of Example Position
Medium of Travel
Typical Example
Sketch Before Before
#
1st
2nd
1
1.07
0.90
2
0.98
0.92
3
1.06
0.86
Before
3rd
0.91
1.00
0.86
Novel Example
Sketch Before Before Before
#
1st
2nd
3rd
1
0.98
1.18
1.53
2
1.49
1.14
1.27
3
1.49
1.15
1.32
Means of Propulsion
Typical Example
Sketch Before Before Before
#
1st
2nd
3rd
1
2.54
14.24
4.46
2
3
0.81
2.36
2.55
2.77
4.46
2.35
Type of Motion
Typical Example
Sketch Before
#
1st
1
1.33
2
1.41
3
1.48
Number of Parts
Typical Example
Sketch Before
#
1st
1
1.05
2
1.05
3
1.24
Before Before
2nd
3rd
1.75
1.49
1.29
1.40
1.51
1.26
Before
2nd
1.00
Before
3rd
0.97
0.88
0.88
1.13
0.92
Novel Example
Sketch Before Before
#
1st
2nd
1
11.49 5.66
2
5.48
4.27
Before
3rd
6.97
8.49
3
2.74
11.32
7.21
Novel Example
Sketch Before Before Before
#
1st
2nd
3rd
1
1.49
1.73
1.72
2
3
1.69
1.75
1.78
1.63
1.77
1.74
Novel Example
Sketch Before Before
#
1st
2nd
1
1.09
1.53
2
1.22
1.02
3
1.35
1.19
Before
3rd
1.23
1.15
1.28
For the Design Dimensions of Medium, Motion, and # Parts, it can be
seen that the lowest novelty score of the three sketches was for the design
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S.M. Smith, N.W. Kohn & J.J. Shah
generated immediately after viewing the Typical Example prior to Sketch
#1. For Propulsion, Motion, and # Parts, the lowest novelty score of the
three sketches was for the design immediately after seeing the Typical Example prior to Sketch #2. For all dimensions, Medium, Propulsion, Motion, and # Parts, the lowest novelty score of the three sketches was for the
design immediately after seeing the Typical Example prior to Sketch #3.
Thus, conformity to Typical Examples clearly reduced the novelty of proximally generated designs.
Between-subjects comparisons indicated that when a typical example was seen before the first sketch, novelty was lower on that sketch in
terms of
For the Design Dimensions of Medium, Propulsion, and # Parts, it
can be seen that the highest novelty score of the three sketches was for the
design generated immediately after viewing the Novel Example prior to
Sketch #1. For Medium and Motion, the highest novelty score of the three
sketches was for the design immediately after seeing the Novel Example
prior to Sketch #2. For Medium and # Parts, the highest novelty score of
the three sketches was for the design immediately after seeing the Novel
Example prior to Sketch #3. Thus, conformity to Novel Examples clearly
increased the novelty of proximally generated designs.
It can also be seen that there was a tendency for the overall novelty
scores associated with Typical Examples to be lower the earlier that participants viewed the example. Similarly, the overall novelty of sketches associated with Novel Examples tended to be higher the earlier that participants had seen those low frequency examples. Thus, the beneficial effect
of Novel Examples and the deleterious effect of Typical Examples tended
to persist, having somewhat greater effects the earlier they are seen.
Summary, Conclusions, and Directions for Future Research
The two experiments in the present study make several important contributions to the experimental study of design. One contribution is to the process of experimental alignment; that is, by showing that non-experts in a
time-limited experimental situation show the ability to generate plausible
design sketches, the present experiments demonstrate that similar manipulations, observations, and conclusions can be made under simpler, more
controllable laboratory conditions than are found in more ecologically realistic settings, such as engineering design classes. Second, the experiments
begin to resolve the apparent contradiction between fixation and conformity hypotheses, which portray examples as limiting and constraining crea-
What You See Is What You Get
19
tive design, and prior studies of the C-Sketch method, which show benefits
of provocative stimuli in creative design. That is, consistent with the fixation and conformity hypothesis, seeing typical examples at any stage of the
design process appears to have decreased the novelty of subsequent designs, and consistent with the provocation hypothesis, viewing novel examples increased design novelty at all stages.
Future experimental studies of the effects of provocative stimuli
have a rich and extensive set of questions to be explored. Do multiple provocative exert stronger effects on design novelty than does a single example? Would varied examples provoke more variety and novelty in design
than would a more homogeneous set of examples? Would incubation periods help relieve the deleterious effects of seeing typical examples? What
types of provocative stimuli might remediate the constraining effects of
seeing commonplace examples? Of particular interest should be the role of
factors that provoke abstract thinking, and how such influences might help
relieve the effects of viewing typical examples. Such questions, and many
others that are theoretically motivated, or motivated by empirical findings
like the present ones, must be addressed to improve and optimize tools,
such as C-Sketch, that can be used to improve creativity in conceptual design.
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