Modeling Creativity and Knowledge-Based Creative Design

John S. Gero, Mary Lou Maher, John S. Gero, Mary Lou Maher

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134771332
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Over the last decade research into design processes utilizing ideas and models drawn from artificial intelligence has resulted in a better understanding of design -- particularly routine design -- as a process. Indeed, most of the current research activity directly or indirectly deals only with routine design. Not surprisingly, many practicing designers state that the level of understanding represented by these models is only of mild interest because they fail to embody any ideas about creativity. This volume provides a set of chapters in the areas of modeling creativity and knowledge-based creative design that examines the potential role and form of computer-aided design which supports creativity. It aims to define the state-of-the-art of computational creativity in design as well as to identify research directions. Published at a time when the field of computational creativity in design is still immature, it should influence the directions of growth and assist the field in reaching maturity.

1

Introduction

John S. Gero and Mary Lou Maher

Modeling creativity and knowledge-based creative design is a topic that invokes both positive and negative responses from designers and researchers in artificial intelligence and design. The topic is a difficult one given our current understanding of creativity and potential computational models of creativity. For some, the notion of understanding creativity is in itself a contradiction of terms. In this chapter we raise some of the issues in proposing that creativity can be modeled and that knowledge-based approaches have the potential to provide computational models of creativity.

1.1    Creative Design

Design distinguishes itself from other human activities in a variety of ways. One of the most important ways is that the resulting artifact is expected to be different, albeit even if only slightly, from previous artifacts. This places design within a social context because the differences are evaluated within that context. The magnitude and quality of these differences are commonly used to separate artifacts into two categories although the boundary between them is fuzzy and constantly changes. These two categories are labeled routine and nonroutine designs. The labels can be applied equally to the processes of design that produced them as to the artifacts or designs themselves. The interest in drawing this distinction lies in the implications it has for articulating computational processes that support design activity. The inference is that processes for routine design are likely to be different from those for nonroutine design.

Routine designs may be defined as ones that are recognized as not being different from previously produced designs in their class in any substantive way. Thus, in structural engineering, designing a reinforced concrete beam for a given span and load subject to the normal goals and constraints generally will result in a rectangular cross-section of particular dimensions with certain reinforcement sizes and placement. Whereas another designer may produce a design that has different dimensions and reinforcement sizes and placement, the two designs will be recognized as being remarkably similar. Furthermore, the same designer designing another reinforced concrete beam for another span and load may produce a design with a rectangular cross-section of different dimensions and reinforcement sizes and placement and this design is also recognized as being similar to the previous design.

What makes these designs similar, it can be argued, is that they all exhibit the same properties but with different magnitudes. More formally, we state that these designers all chose to use the same design variables to work with and produce different values for those variables dependent on their perception of the situation. They may well have used similar processes as well to produce the values of the variables. Two processes are of interest. The first is concerned with the selection of the variables of interest and the second is concerned with producing values for those variables. The design variables with their values describe a design.

Nonroutine designs may be defined as ones that are recognized as being different from previously produced designs in their class in some substantive sense. We describe how we understand and interpret these differences later. It is convenient to draw a further distinction within nonroutine design. We label these two subcategories as innovative and creative design.

In innovative design we recognize that the substantive difference has come about from a particular set of values for the design variables that are outside the commonly used range. For example, in designing a camera with a zoom lens, the focal length of such lenses is normally 35 mm to 105 mm, however a designer may wish to use a range of 28 mm to 135 mm. This is likely to result in a longer, heavier lens but may well not produce any other changes. The camera would still look, feel, and work like any other similar zoom lens camera. This design could be considered innovative. A structural engineer may choose to design a reinforced concrete beam that was very deep compared to the normal depths for beams in order to emphasize the beam’s load bearing function. The resulting design will not have any new design variables in it, only unusual values for those variables. However, a user of the design may evaluate it as being different from previously produced designs.

In creative designs we recognize that the substantive difference has come about from the introduction of new design variables. For example, in designing telephones the normal way of allowing the user to move away from the location of a telephone cradle has been to provide a long, extensible cord connecting the handset to the cradle. The introduction of an alternate means of connection of the handset to the cradle based on radio waves produces a design that is seen as being creative.

However, for a design to be evaluated as being creative the criterion of novelty is insufficient, utility and value are also required. Assuming all designs are novel and all designs are useful because designing is a purposeful act, value remains the important distinguishing criterion in the evaluation of the creativeness of a design. It has been suggested that value is related to two ideas transformation and concentration.

One property present in some products but absent, or less obvious, in others is the power to transform the constraints of reality. Some objects combine elements in ways that defy tradition and that yield a new perspective. They literally force us to see reality in a new way. These products involve a transformation of materials or ideas to overcome conventional constraints.

Products that warrant close and repeated examination are those that do not divulge their total meaning at first viewing. These products offer something new each time we experience them, whether they are great works of art or highly developed scientific theories. They have about them an intensity and concentration of meaning requiring continued contemplation.

The implication of these ideas is that the creativeness of an artifact can only be evaluated after it has been designed. This leaves us with the questions: Are there processes that are capable of producing creative designs and are these processes different from those that may be used to produce designs that are not considered creative? Further, are there computational analogs of these processes? Can we write computer programs which are capable of producing creative designs? Can we write computer programs which aid the production of creative designs? Can we write computer programs which support the production of creative designs? Finally, can we conceive of computational support for the evaluation of the creativeness of a design?

1.2    Implications of Knowledge-Based Creative Design

The introduction of knowledge-based systems as an approach to developing computer programs that support or simulate design processes has provided new insight into understanding and/or modeling creative design. Although the knowledge-based approach does not answer many of the questions raised in the previous section about the nature of creativity, it does provide some techniques that can be used to explore the questions themselves and possibly to propose some answers. In this section we highlight some of the implications of knowledge-based creative design, where the concepts of knowledge-based systems and creative design come together and complement each other.

The basis of knowledge-based systems is that knowledge is represented in an explicit form and used to reason about solving a problem. This explicit representation of knowledge provides a means for reasoning that differs from the mathematical models that preceded knowledge-based systems in computational problem solving. The distinguishing features of knowledge-based systems are the separation of knowledge and control and the predominance of symbolic modeling. The separation of knowledge and control in modeling creative design implies that we can discuss the role of the knowledge-base in creative design separately to the role of reasoning in creative design. This relates, in a loose way, to the difference in creative processes versus creative products. Creative processes implies that the reasoning process itself is creative. Creative products implies that the knowledge provides the basis for creativity. In a knowledge-based system the two work together so that knowledge can be used to produce a creative product independently of whether the reasoning process was creative. If this is the case, we can produce computational models of creativity by providing an appropriate combination of knowledge representation and reasoning.

The role of the knowledge base in creative design is to provide the content and organization of design knowledge that can be used to generate a creative product. This is similar to the role of experience and extensive training in human designers. Creativity is rarely the result of naivety, but rather it results from the ability of a highly intelligent person to put different ideas together and recognise their value. The knowledge base serves the purpose of providing such knowledge. In knowledge-based creative design we are able to explore the role, content, and organization of suitable knowledge bases. We come across terms such as memory organization, indexing, flexible retrieval, and so forth. These concepts allow us to explore the issues of knowledge-based creative design. In this book models of creative design based on the knowledge-base organization and content are presented.

The role of reasoning in creative design raises issues related to modeling design processes. In some cases it is difficult to distinguish between design and creative design, because the result of designing is to produce a new object. When we discuss the role of reasoning in design we refer to various process models such as decomposition, search, exploration, analogy, and mutation. These reasoning methods provide a basis for exploring creative design and the knowledge needed to support the processes.

1.3    Approaches to Knowledge-Based Creative Design

Researchers are beginning to explore various ways in which knowledge-based systems can support and/or produce creative designs. These approaches include:

• the development of better user interfaces to knowledge-based design systems can support creativity because the knowledge-based approach to design can be flexible and provide justifications and knowledge resources;
• the development of bigger knowledge-bases can support creativity because creativity depends on knowing a lot;
• the type of knowledge required for creative design differs from the type of knowledge required for routine design, so knowledge-based creative design implies a different, knowledge representation scheme;
• creative design processes are different to routine design processes, understanding the difference allows us to implement such processes; and
• creative design requires a computational model that has a more flexible search mechanism.

These approaches vary in whether the knowledge-based system supports human creativity or attempts to model human creativity. Another distinction in these approaches is whether the content and organization of the knowledge-base is different, for creative design or whether the difference lies in the reasoning mechanism. The chapters in this book explore many of these approaches in more detail, highlighting the role of the knowledge-based system for creative design and the actual or potential implementation.

1.4    This Book

This book is based on a workshop held in December 1989. The submitted papers were reviewed where the basis for acceptance was the relevance to the topic of the workshop rather than demonstrated results in producing models of creativity or implemented knowledge-based creative design. The workshop served as a forum for discussing the various issues raised by the accepted papers. The presentation was in the form of a round-table discussion which provided the basis for the organization of the book. The book does not follow the proceedings of the workshop but is an afterthought of the participants. Each author had the opportunity to revise their submission based on the experience of the workshop.

The book is organized into three parts. Part I deals with creativity itself. The notion of creativity has an historical component and an aura of mystery. The chapters in this section raise issues related to understanding or to being able to understand creativity. Part II takes a more computational view of creativity by considering how artificial intelligence or knowledge-based approaches can provide models for creative design. The chapters in this section present models and then either support them or show how they cannot begin to address the creativity issues. Part III is even more oriented towards computer creativity where computer programs have been implemented that demonstrate some aspect of creative design. The chapters in this section propose a computable model of creativity and describe an implementation of this model.

The issues addressed in this book center around the fact that creative design is an important and timely topic. Understanding creativity and providing support in the form of computer programs and environments are goals that the participants in the workshop strive to achieve. Whether such goals are achievable and whether this book provides the seeds for achieving these goals is yet to be seen. The conclusions to be drawn from such a discussion are left to the reader.

PART I

Creativity

Part I considers creativity from both a human and computational perspective. The first chapter, “Social aspects of creativity and their impact on creativity modeling” by Heath, presents the concept of creativity from a historical perspective in which creativity and mysticism are synonomous. The second chapter, “A computational view of design creativity” by Mitchell, discusses the areas in which computer-aided design fails to support creativity, such as shape emergence. The third chapter, “Emergent value in creative products: some implications for creative processes” by McLaughlin, looks at examples of creative design and considers the issue of automation in producing or supporting such designs. The fourth chapter, “A neuropsychologically-based approach to creativity” by Takala, looks at a model of human creativity as a basis for a computable model of creativity.

2

Social Aspects of Creativity and their Impact on Creativity Modeling

Tom Heath

Creativity is not solely a matter of individual abilities or behavior. Creativity implies an innovative outcome. This depends on opportunity, which is social. Within a constraint model of design, this social aspect of creativity can be represented in the form of an ‘index of opportunity.’ This ‘reality principle’ is required if creativity is not to degenerate into fantasy.

2.1 Creativity and the Tradition of Individualism

‘Creative’ is one of the keywords of our time (Williams, 1976). Liam Hudson has remarked that creativity applies to all those qualities of which psychologists approve (Hudson, 1966). This draws our attention both to the strongly honorific sense of ‘creative’ and to its rather careless use. Its importance is so established that a concept originally intended to apply to artists only, and to distinguish them from artisans and technologists, and also from commercial hacks, has been appropriated by the very people it was meant to exclude. Everyone now agrees that scientists are creative. Poincare’s book on mathematical creation has become a classic of the literature on creativity (Poincare, 1908). An important section of Wertheimer’s book on productive thinking (Wertheimer, 1945) is devoted to Einstein’s recollections of the path by which he came to his major discoveries. By the time of the post-Sputnik explosion of creativity studies, it was accepted that even quite prosaic technical and commercial innovations involve creativity (Schön, 1963). Williams (1976) lamented that advertising copywriters “officially describe themselves as creative.” Such extensions of concepts are historically common. However it often happen...