To explain the origins of new scientific ideas, historians and philosophers of science point to examples where scientists appear to have drawn analogies between their scientific domain and some very different domain. By contrast, research from the psychology lab suggests that those kinds of analogies are very difficult to obtain in even the simplest situations. To resolve this potential conflict, we examine the analogies that occur in psychology lab group and formal colloquium settings. This approach can be viewed as a cross-sectional approximation of an historical analysis. We find that as the setting moves further away from the original discovery, the way different types of analogies appear to be used changes. In particular, analogies between very different domains are never used in reasoning in the lab group, whereas they are frequently used in reasoning in formal colloquium presentations. Yet, we find that analogy between very similar domains remains an important source of new ideas and a method for solving problems in scientific settings.

Predictions about information search behavior have been informed by extensive research in food foraging behavior. However, information foraging environments may differ in key ways from food foraging environments, and these differences may impact search behavior. We investigated the effect of patch distribution (depleting or non-depleting) and ability to return to previously searched patches on participants’ decision to switch from one patch to another while searching. Whether or not a participant could return after leaving a patch led to fewer samples and fewer relevant items found. Whether or not the patches depleted and whether it was possible to return to a patch influenced stopping rules, indicating that these factors may alter the size of the increment applied through the Incremental Rule.