To think inside the box, or to think out of the box? Scientific discovery via the reciprocation of insights and concepts

TL;DR

This paper introduces Mindle, a semantic search game designed to simulate scientific discovery by balancing insight generation and domain knowledge application, enabling large-scale exploration of discovery processes.

Contribution

It proposes a novel framework and infrastructure, Mindle, to study the interplay of insight and domain knowledge in scientific discovery through a gamified approach.

Findings

Pilot studies reveal interesting patterns and hypotheses about discovery strategies.

The framework enables large-scale investigation of insight and concept usage.

Initial observations suggest diversity in individual discovery approaches.

Abstract

If scientific discovery is one of the main driving forces of human progress, insight is the fuel for the engine, which has long attracted behavior-level research to understand and model its underlying cognitive process. However, current tasks that abstract scientific discovery mostly focus on the emergence of insight, ignoring the special role played by domain knowledge. In this concept paper, we view scientific discovery as an interplay between $thinking \ out \ of \ the \ box$ that actively seeks insightful solutions and $thinking \ inside \ the \ box$ that generalizes on conceptual domain knowledge to keep correct. Accordingly, we propose Mindle, a semantic searching game that triggers scientific-discovery-like thinking spontaneously, as infrastructure for exploring scientific discovery on a large scale. On this basis, the meta-strategies for insights and the usage of concepts can be investigated reciprocally. In the pilot studies, several interesting observations inspire elaborated hypotheses on meta-strategies, context, and individual diversity for further investigations.