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Investigation on the Aha-Experience as an Indicator of Correct Solutions in Functional Analysis in Engineering Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Christoph Zimmerer ,
Thomas Nelius  and
Sven Matthiesen
Christoph Zimmerer*
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Thomas Nelius
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Sven Matthiesen
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
*
Zimmerer, Christoph, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), IPEK Institute of Product Engineering, Germany, christoph.zimmerer@kit.edu

Abstract

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The functional analysis of technical systems is an important part of the design process. To further improve the design process, especially the functional analysis, it must not be viewed as a monodisciplinary process. To this end, cognitive factors such as the aha-experience must also be included in studies of analysis processes to a greater extent. This paper investigates the relationship between the occurrence of aha-experiences and the correctness of solutions in the analysis of a technical system. An aha-experience is a strong feeling of subjective certainty that accompanies the cognitive process of suddenly finding a previously unknown solution. For this purpose, a study on the functional analysis was evaluated. The results show that many identified subfunctions of the system under investigation were identified with an aha-experience and that these subfunctions are more often correct. The results also suggest that aha-experiences occur more often among students than among experienced design engineers. Especially among students, a positive relation of aha-experiences on the correctness of the identified subfunction can be seen. This offers potential for further investigations to make aha-experiences useful in design methods.

Keywords

Design cognitionHuman behaviour in designDesign engineeringfunctional analysisaha-experience
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 1: ICED21 , August 2021 , pp. 1947 - 1956
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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