Scientific innovation problems solving as an important aspect of the prototype elicitation became the research hotspot on cognition field of creative thinking. Though scholars have explored a series of cognitive neural mechanisms of insight from different technology, experiment task, or experimental paradigm, so far there is no unified theory on the mechanism of insight due to the sudden insight and complexity. Heuristic thinking has been proved to be the most direct driving force for the emergence of insight. Heuristic thinking is based on “prototype elicitation theory” which holds that “prototype heuristic” is an important way to generate insight.

Based on the theory of prototype elicitation, there are two research paradigms on prototype elicitation of scientific innovation problems solving during previous research findings. They are prototype-orientated and problem-orientated paradigms. In the prototype-orientated paradigm, the prototype materials have been presented firstly, and the situational problem materials presented after prototype materials. It requires the subjects to match the prototype materials with the corresponding problems and solve the problem within the specified time. To the contrary, in the problem-orientated paradigm, the problem materials have been presented firstly, and the prototype materials presented after the subjects learn. It requires the subjects to match the situational problems with the corresponding prototype materials within the specified time and solve the problems. When solving practical problems, people often think of solving existing problems in their minds. Prototype materials only exist for the purpose of solving problems. Based on this, problem-oriented paradigm starts to get attention.

Both paradigms have some kind of identical cognitive process in the production of insight or problem solving. There are similarities on text representation, correlation automatic activation, automatic response and differences on mental preparation for problem thinking, depth of prototyping, difficulty of automatic response when we solving the insight problem under the two paradigms. From the similarities and differences of the two paradigms, we can investigate the essence of scientific innovation problems solving deeply in response to the controversy of “problem activation” or “prototype activation”. In the prototype-orientated paradigms, scientific innovation problems have been solved due to “prototype activation”. And in the problem -orientated paradigms, scientific innovation problems have been solved due to “problem activation”.

By sorting out the previous literature, both the two paradigms of prototype-orientated and problem-orientated can promote insight. In essence, there is a potential semantic similarity between the prototype and the problem. Finding the potential semantic similarity between events is an effective way of invention. It is the potential semantic similarity between the “structure function” of the “prototype” and the “demand function” of the “problem”. The “automatic response” came into being. In this way the subjects can match the prototype with the problem and solve the problem successfully. It can be seen that in this process, “activation” is the premise of solving the insight problem, but the “automatic response” process between “prototype” and “problem” is the key factor to solving the insight problem. Therefore, this study believes that the essence of scientific innovation problems solving is the “automatic response” process between the prototype and the problem.