Reducing cognitive bias in biomimetic design by abstracting nouns

Biological analogies can increase creativity in design by providing related, yet distant-domain stimuli, which have been reported to lead to more innovative concepts than within-domain stimuli. However, over the past decade, we have observed that designers are influenced by cognitive biases in their selection and application of biological analogies. We propose that abstraction of biological nouns in descriptions of biological phenomena can reduce such cognitive bias and support analogical reasoning. Experiments confirmed the promising effect of this objective and automatable intervention on novice designers. The cognitive biases and fixation we aim to reduce are relevant to conceptual design in general.