Reusing patterns for indexing and communicating knowledge and insight

Analogies can be used in most areas of human communication to highlight points of special interest. The creation of specific, specialised patterns, examples, or analogies for facilitating communication is resource-consuming. We therefore hypothesize that there are universal patterns that can be used and reused more economically, compared to specialised patterns, for indexing and communicating knowledge. We have conducted empirical tests with altogether 204 students, each one of whom was given 20 minutes to solve problems from six different scientific areas. The results of our tests show clearly an improvement of their problem solving skill when universal patterns were employed as cognitive aids. The average result of the test group that used universal patterns was 81 per cent higher than that of the control group.