Development of reflection support system by applying a cognitive model of analogical reasoning

Abstract

Creative innovation is achieved by observing the features of objects. This paper terms such a skill as "the discovering viewpoints" and proposes a framework for developing them. Our proposal implements the cognitive models of analogical reasoning that have been developed in the field of cognitive science. In the framework of this paper, learners are presented with an example of graphic composition, and they carry out the task by modifying the example. The cognitive models of analogical reasoning compute the similarities between the presented example and the learners' work. The computed similarities are assumed to be the estimations of the learners' viewpoints in the task. The learners receive the outputs of computations and reflect on their viewpoints. During the reflection, they look for hidden features in the graphics by manipulating three parameters of the similarity computations (the feature space, the abstractness, and the consistency). We developed a prototype system that implements the above framework, and conducted an experiment in which the developed system was used by the learners. As a result, we confirmed the workability of the system by analyzing the log files obtained in the experiment. Furthermore, we confirmed the effects of learning support on the development of discovering viewpoints by analyzing the subjective evaluations on the learners'.