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.
