ABSTRACT
Over the past 40 years or so, an extensive body of knowledge about the “cognition of discovery” has emerged. For most of this period, the work was based in the psychology laboratory, using ordinary participants working on simplified (but not always simple) problems that represented one or another important aspects of the discovery process. Nevertheless, as these types of studies have become increasingly complicated—progressing from simple concept formation (Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1956) and rule-induction studies (Wason, 1960) to difficult and complex “discovery microworlds” (Dunbar, 1993; Klahr, 2000; Mynatt, Doherty, & Tweney, 1978; Schunn & Klahr, 1992)—they have provided important insights, findings, and conceptual frameworks for better understanding the cognitive processes that support discovery and invention.
