Abstract
In this paper, we propose a novel method to investigate creative thinking in the real-world. In our experiment, subjects were presented a cue story, and retrieved cases that had been learned in their everyday life. Following this, they rated utility of each retrieved case. For each retrieved case, we computed two kinds of similarity scores: the surface similarity score and the structural similarity score. As a result, the former score explained the overall retrieval of cases well, whereas the later score had a strong relation to the rated scores. These results are consistent with the structural mapping theory.
