Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T10:33:32.963Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Using language as related stimuli for concept generation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2007

IVEY CHIU  and
L.H. SHU
IVEY CHIU
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
L.H. SHU
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the use of language, specifically verbs, as stimuli for concept generation. Because language has been shown to be important to the reasoning process in general as well as to specific reasoning processes that are central to the design process, we are investigating the relationship between language and conceptual design. The use of language to facilitate different stages of the design process has been investigated in the past. Our previous work, and the work of others, showed that ideas produced can be expressed through related hierarchical lexical relationships, so we investigated the use of verbs within these hierarchical relationships as stimuli for ideas. Participants were provided with four problems and related verb stimuli, and asked to develop concepts using the stimuli provided. The stimuli sets were generated by exploring verb hierarchies based on functional words from the problem statements. We found that participants were most successful when using lower level (more specific) verbs as stimuli, and often higher level general verbs were only used successfully in conjunction with lower level verbs. We also observed that intransitive verbs (verbs that cannot take a direct object) were less likely to be used successfully in the development of concepts. Overall, we found that the verb chosen as stimulus by the participant directly affects the success and the type of concept developed.

Keywords

Conceptual DesignDesign StimuliVerb-Based Concept Generation
Type
Research Article
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 103 - 121
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Burg, J.F.M. (1997). Linguistic instruments in requirements engineering. PhD Thesis. Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
Cooke, N.J. (1994). Varieties of knowledge elicitation techniques. International Journal of Human–Computer Studies 41, 801–849.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chiu, I. & Shu, L.H. (2005). Bridging cross-domain terminology for biomimetic design. Proc. ASME IDETC, Paper No. DETC2005/DETC-84908, Long Beach, CA.
Chiu, I. & Shu, L.H. (2007). Biomimetic design through natural language analysis to facilitate cross-domain information retrieval. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 21(1), 45–59.Google Scholar
De Bono, E. (1992). Serious Creativity. New York: HarperCollins.
Dentsoras, A.J. (2005). Information generation during design: information importance and design effort. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 19(1), 19–32.Google Scholar
Design that Matters. (2006). Design that matters design challenge portfolio: shelling machines. Accessed at http://www.designthatmatters.org/
Dieter, G.E. (1999). Engineering Design: A Materials and Processing Approach, 3rd ed. New York: McGraw–Hill.
Dong, A. (2006). Concept formation as knowledge accumulation: a computational linguistics study. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 20(1), 35–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dong, A., Hill, A.W., & Agogino, A.M. (2003). A document analysis method for characterizing design team performance. Journal of Mechanical Design 126(3), 378–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fellbaum, C. (1998). English verbs as a semantic net. Five papers on WordNet, pp. 40–61. Accessed at ftp://ftp.cogsci.princeton.edu/pub/wordnet/5papers.ps
Gentner, D. & Frances, I. (1988). The verb mutability effect: studies of the combinatorial semantics of nouns and verbs. In Lexical Ambiguity Resolution (Smal, S., Cottrell, G. & Tanenhaus, M., Eds.). Los Altos, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.
Gero, J.S., Sushil, J.L., & Kundu, S. (1994). Evolutionary learning of novel grammars for design. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 8(2), 83–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalmar, I. & Davidson, D. (1997). Anthropological Linguistics and Semiotics, 2nd ed. Toronto: Quirk Press.
Kosse, V. (2004). Solving Problems With TRIZ: An Exercise Handbook, 2nd ed. Southfield, MI: Ideation International Inc.
Levinson, S. (1996). Language and space. Annual Review of Anthropology 25, 353–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, P. & Gleitman, L. (2002). Turning the tables: language and spatial reasoning. Cognition 83, 265–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mabogunje, A. & Leifer, L. (1997). Noun phrases as surrogates for measuring early phases of the mechanical design process. Proc. ASME DETC/CIE, Sacramento, CA.
Mak, T.W. & Shu, L.H. (2004). Use of biological phenomena in design by analogy. In Proc. of ASME DETC/CIE, Paper No. DETC2004/DETC-57303. Salt Lake City, UT.CrossRef
Miller, G.A., Beckwith, R., Fellbaum, C., Gross, D., & Miller, K. (1993). Introduction to WordNet: an on-line lexical database. Five papers on WordNet, pp. 1–25. Accessed at ftp://ftp.cogsci.princeton.edu/pub/wordnet/5papers.ps
Nuseibeh, B. & Easterbrook, S. (2000). Requirements engineering: a roadmap. In The Future of Software Engineering (Finkelstein, A.C.W., Ed.). New York: IEEE Computer Society Press.
Pahl, G. & Beitz, W. (1996). Engineering Design: A Systematic Approach (Wallace, K., Blessing, L. & Bauert, F., Eds., Wallace, K., Trans.), 2nd rev. ed. London: Springer–Verlag.CrossRef
Segers, N. (2004). Computational representations of words and representations of words and associations in architectural design, development of a system support creative design. PhD Thesis. Technische Universiteit Eindhoven.
Stone, R.B. & Wood, K.L. (2000). Development of a functional basis for design. Journal of Mechanical Design, Transactions of the ASME 122, 359–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suh, N.P. (1990). The Principles of Design. New York: Oxford University Press.
Terninko, J., Zusman, A., & Zlotin, B. (1998). Systematic Innovation: An Introduction to TRIZ. Boca Raton, FL: St. Lucie Press.
Ullman, D. (2003). The Mechanical Design Process, 3rd ed. New York: McGraw–Hill.
WordNet, 2.0. (n.d.). Accessed at http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/∼wn/