Concept blending and dissimilarity: factors for creative concept generation process

We approached the concept generation stage in design within the framework of a concept-synthesizing process from two base concepts. We analyzed the concept generation process by comparing it with the linguistic interpretation process, from the viewpoints of thought types (property mapping, blending, and thematic relation) and recognition types (commonalities and alignable and nonalignable differences). Subjects interpreted a novel noun–noun phrase, designed a new concept from it, and listed the similarities and dissimilarities between the nouns. Blending (i.e. generating a new concept that is not included in the two base concepts but that inherits certain characteristics of the concepts) and nonalignable differences (i.e. the recognized differences that are unrelated to the common structure) characterize the creative concept generation process.