Tunnel Effects in Cognition: A new Mechanism for Scientific Discovery and Education

It is quite exceptional, if it ever happens, that a new conceptual domain be built from scratch. Usually, it is developed and mastered in interaction, both positive and negative, with other more operational existing domains. Few reasoning mechanisms have been proposed to account for the interplay of different conceptual domains and the transfer of information from one to another. Analogical reasoning is one, blending is another. This paper presents a new mechanism, called 'tunnel effect', that may explain, in part, how scientists and students reason while constructing a new conceptual domain. One experimental study with high school students and analyses from the history of science, particularly about the birth of classical thermodynamics, provide evidence and illustrate this mechanism. The knowledge organization, processes and conditions for its appearance are detailed and put into the perspective of a computational model. Specifically, we put forward the hypothesis that two levels of knowledge, notional and conceptual, cooperate in the scientific discovery process when a new conceptual domain is being built. The type of conceptual learning that can be associated with tunnel effect is discussed and a thorough comparison is made with analogical reasoning in order to underline the main features of the new proposed mechanism.