Toward a General Theory of Scientific Discovery by Ryan D.

Tweney Department of Psychology Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43403 USA 419/372-2301; Fax: 419/372-6013 tweney@bgnet.bgsu.edu In an earlier paper (Tweney, 1989), I presented an outline of how cognitive science could be used to structure a set of general approaches to the understanding of scientific thinking. In particular, I argued that a distinction could be drawn between theories, testable accounts of the general and lawful processes that underlie cognition in a domain, and frameworks, interpretive schemes which apply cognitive theories to the understanding of specific incidents within the domain of scientific thinking. In addition, an analytic framework consisting of five levels of interpretation, each based upon a wellknown theoretical construct, was proposed as an aid in the interpretation of the laboratory diaries of experimental scientists. To illustrate the application, an account was given of Michael Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction in August, 1831. In the present paper, I modify and extend the earlier account. Specifically, the five levels are redefined in order to enhance their utility for historical cognitive reconstruction of scientific episodes (Nersessian, 1992). Such episodes can be seen as possessing a "dynamics" of varying frequency characteristics which emerge with varying degrees of clarity depending upon the level of analysis. From the lowest frequency dynamics to the highest, these are as follows: Level 1: Purposes Level 2: Heuristics Level 3: Scripts & Schemata Level 4: Goals & Subgoals Level 5: States & Operators Note that the levels constitute a partially decomposable hierarchy (Simon, 1996/1969); A particular script (for example, "Wind a coil") can be decomposed into specific subgoals ("Obtain wire," "Wind wire on core," etc.), which in turn can be decomposed into specific States and Operators (perceptualmotor entities in this instance). While my use of terminology in the levels sometimes differs from existing cognitive theory (e.g. Newell's, 1990, SOAR treats all of my levels as States and Operators, instantiable using production rules), it can be shown that it is consistent with existing microstructural and macrostructural accounts of scientific activity (e.g., Dunbar, 1995; Langley, et al., 1987). The modification in the levels leads to a general theoretical account of scientific thinking having broad applicability and generalizability. I argue that the resulting theory accommodates concerns derived from both the humanities (e.g., the history of science, culture studies) and the sciences (e.g., dynamic systems theory), and I suggest that any distinction between "soft" approaches and "hard" approaches is illusory. Instead, both are necessary to account for the complexity of real-world thinking in a socially- and culturally-conditioned domain. In fact, such a blending of interpretive ("humanities-like") and scientific ("explanatory") accounts fits well with recent attempts to contextualize cognition (e.g., Greeno & Moore, 1993; Hutchins, 1995). The goals of an explanatory theory of scientific thinking, based on diary records, say, do not differ from the explanatory goals of any account of complex cognitive processes, namely, to reconstruct, in terms of known laws of thinking, the course of thought from problem statement to problem solution. In this sense, the theory is an extension and application of traditional approaches to problem solving. Further, the theory has recently permitted extensions that capture "presymbolic" processes of representational construction, which in turn are tied to perceptual and inceptual processes; the theory is thereby better able to capture discovery processes (Tweney, 1996). For example, Duncan & Tweney (1997) have shown that Faraday's developing representation of aspects of his field theory, from October, 1831 to March, 1832, can be accounted for by positing a "representational spillover" from one domain to another; in effect, Faraday's "network of enterprise" (Gruber, 1974) can be accommodated by positing that Faraday's long-term purposes (Level 1, above) are instantiated via specific heuristics (Level 2) which interact in generative fashion. In a different context, Ippolito &

Tweney (1995; in press) have shown that Faraday's work on acoustics in 1831 (just prior to his discovery of induction) manifests a progression from perceptual rehearsal through "inceptual rehearsal," in which selective aspects of his perceptual experiences are enhanced and "run" in standalone fashion. The resulting inceptions form the basis for the active construction of a mental model, which can in turn be instantiated in physical apparatus. Here, specific heuristics (Level 2) are instantiated via repeated use of scripts (Level 3), which in turn modify the heuristics, and so on; only then is physical instantiation (Levels 4 and 5) possible. Finally, consider the constraints placed upon an adequate theory of scientific thinking by the need to reflect cultural, social, and historical contexts (e.g., Gooding, 1990). Here I also depart from traditional approaches, since the contextual meaning of the scientist's activities demands accounting to understand scientific representations. The present theory can incorporate explicit representation of such dynamics. For example, a recent investigation (Kurz, 1997; Kurz & Tweney, in press) of the representational use of differential equations relied upon the representational multiplicity of the calculus (recoverable from the rich history of the calculus) to uncover the Purposes and Heuristics (Levels 1 and 2) at play in the real-time attempts of expert physical scientists and mathematicians to solve a rate problem. Such "archeology" of knowledge (Foucault, 1970/1966) proves fully consistent with even the most molecular accounts of problem-solving activities, while enhancing the ability of the cognitive sciences to deal with the need to have a "cognition of calculus." The task of a cognitive scientific theory of scientific thinking is thus easily coordinated with the task of a humanities-based approach to the interpretation of such activity. My earlier distinction between frameworks and theories proves unnecessary, since the "framework" proposed can simultaneously meet the requirements of scientific theory (for a single testable account) and of the humanities (for a multileveled account that respects the meaning of the representational activities of the scientist). The "meaning" of scientific thinking can be illuminated in surprising fashion by such a broad perspective and may have implications for science teaching, as well as for ongoing debates within psychology concerning the nature of "scientific psychology" itself. References Dunbar, K. (1995). How scientists really reason: Scientific reasoning in real-world laboratories. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Davidson (Eds.), Mechanisms of insight (pp. 365-396). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Duncan, S.C. & Tweney, R.D. (1997). (Abstract). The Problem-Behavior Map as cognitive-historical analysis: The example of Michael Faraday. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, p. 901. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Foucault, M. (1970/1966). The order of things: An archeology of the human sciences. NY: Random House (Trans. from Les mots et les choses, 1966). Gooding, D. (1990). Experiment and the making of meaning: Human agency in scientific observation and experiment. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Greeno, J.G. & Moore, J.L. (1993). Situativity and symbols: Response to Vera and Simon. Cognitive Science, 17, 49-59. Gruber, H. E. (1974). Darwin on man. New York: Dutton. Hutchins, E. (1995). How a cockpit remembers its speeds. Cognitive Science, 19, 265-288. Ippolito, M.F. & Tweney, R.D. (1995). The inception of insight. In R.J. Sternberg & J.E. Davidson (eds.) The nature of insight. (pp. 433-462). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ippolito, M.F. & Tweney, R.D. (in press). The journey to Jacob's Room: The 'Network of enterprise' of Virginia Woolf's first experimental novel. In M. Runco (ed.) Perspectives on creativity: Festschrift for Howard Gruber. New York: Hampton Press. Kurz, E.M. (1997). Representational practices of differential calculus. PhD. Dissertation. Bowling Green State University.

Kurz, E.M. & Tweney, R.D. (in press). Creating environments for cognition: An agentive perspective on scientific and mathematical thinking. In M. Oaksford & N. Chater (Eds.) Rational models of cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Langley, P. W., Simon, H. A., Bradshaw, G. L., & Zytkow, J. M. (1987). Scientific discovery: Computational explorations of the discovery process. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Nersessian, N. (1993, January). Opening the black box: Cognitive science and history of science. Osiris, 10, 194-214. Newell, A. (1990). Unified theories of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial. (3rd ed.). Cambridge: MIT Press. (First published 1969). Tweney, R. D. (1989). A framework for the cognitive psychology of science. In B. Gholson, A. Houts, R. A. Neimeyer, & W. Shadish (Eds.), Psychology of science and metascience. (pp. 342-366). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tweney, R. D. (1996). Presymbolic processes in scientific creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 9, 163-172.