Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

A case study is described which documents the generation of a new hypothesis in the form of a visualizable model. It is argued that several of the processes used were neither deduction nor induction by enumeration. Rather, a new explanatory model was invented via a successive refinement process of hypothesis generation, evaluation, and modification, starting from an initial rough analogy. New predictions emerged when the subject "ran" the model. Thus it appears to be possible to investigate the model construction processes of experts through thinking aloud protocols.