Cognitive Design

Placebos, or the assumption we are receiving a treatment (often a drug) when we are not, can have very real effects and even change behaviors.  Placebos are like “mind medicine” or improvement through belief rather than actual intervention.  As such, they are of great interest to cognitive designers.

That’s why this news item on research into the placebo effect at the University at Buffalo caught my eye:

“Now a recent review of research by University at Buffalo pediatric psychologists suggests that such medication, or the assumption of medication, may produce a placebo effect — not in the children, but in their teachers, parents or other adults who evaluate them.”

Some evidence that the expectation of change can in fact produce change, even in those administering change. The news release explains:

“The act of administering medication, or thinking a child has received medication, may induce positive expectancies in parents and teachers about the effects of that medication, which may, in turn, influence how parents and teachers evaluate and behave toward children with ADHD,” said UB researcher Daniel A. Waschbusch, Ph.D., lead author of the review.

Does this have implications for how we approach organizational change?

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Wow has our view of how minds work changed - even in my lifetime. We have gone from rational calculating machines that carefully consider alternative solutions and seek to maximize economic utility to metaphor-driven, evolutionary kludges of cognitive biases that blink our way through hard problems and seek to maximize our personal mental energy.  

I especially like the emphasis on seeking to maximize personal mental energy.  Mental energy is a fundamental resource so we should be naturally wired to seek objects, relationships and experiences that replenish rather than deplete it.  Fireworks, setting them off or watching a professional delivered display, are great examples. They generate tons of excess mental energy in us.

Watching fireworks triggers meaning, emotion and a wide variety of specific mental states from expectation and surprise to awe.  We anticipate the grand finale, we are pulled into “the now” by powerful sensory effects and we can reminisce and even socialize.  Of course fireworks on the 4th of July are a public expression of our independence as a nation.  The joy of freedom, the pride of accomplishment and the deep psychological power of solidarity release a river of mental energy.

We get this for very little mental effort - all we have to do is look up and watch.  Fireworks are an explosion of mental energy. Millions flock to fireworks displays, like moths to a mental energy flame. 

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Cognitive designers will be especially interested in the articles on why music moves us, why it is hard to unlearn false facts and brain/body fitness.

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For some first-hand insights into the cognition of cults and deprogramming check out this TED video on how cults rewire the brain. It is about 6 minutes long and contains some graphic images. Deprogramming, now that’s a truly hard cognitive design challenge!

In an earlier post, Know Your Employee’s Chronotype, I highlighted an article that argued cognitive performance is influenced by our biological clock or time-of-day-effects. Since then I have been searching for examples of designs that have put that to use. I also received several requests for additional background info that could be used to inform design.

For those seeking a quick background briefing check out the series of posts on Circadiana called the Clock Tutorials.  Short, concise and actionable for designers. I am still looking for great examples of design that leverage our biological clocks.

Washing your hands, especially if you are clinician caring for patients in a hospital, is serious business. It is a key for avoiding the spread of infection and keeping patients safe. Yet it is hard to get 100%  compliance with established hand washing safety practices.   

A classic cognitive design challenge.

EurekAlert! reports on an interesting new approach developed at the University of Florida. Billed as  Soap-sniffing technology encourages hand washing to reduce infections, save money, here is how it works:

“The health-care worker squirts sanitizer gel or soap into his or her hand before passing it under a wall-mounted sensor. A wireless signal from a badge worn by the worker activates a green light on the hand-washing sensor. When the worker enters a patient room, a monitor near the bed detects the status of the badge, and flashes green if the person has clean hands. If the person has not washed, or too much time has passed between washing and approaching the patient, the badge will give a gentle “reminder” vibration.” 

This may seem like too much technology for a behavioral issue, but hand washing in hospitals has turned out to be a very hard condition to manage. The approach is called HyGreen  and it is important because it closes the loop electronically and provides an automated way to monitor and report on compliance. Something that is a known and powerful behavior changer.

Cognitive designers create artifacts that induce specific mental states (thoughts and feelings) and/or enhance specific mental processes (perception, learning, memory, decision-making, creativity, etc.) in the people that use them.  To do this systematically the cognitive designer must have empirical insight into how the mind of their target audience works.  So I am always on the look out for scientific studies that reveal the cognitive biases, dominate metaphors,  mental models, problem solving heuristics and other inner mental workings of particular groups.

An excellent example is the recent study, Engineering Stereotypes Drive Counter Productive Practices.   In the study, researchers from Northwestern and the University of Colorado give us insights into the mental model held by some engineering students on what it means to be an engineer. For example:

“There’s a stereotype that engineers do things by themselves,” Leonardi says. “So when students are asked to work in teams, they think, am I going to be disadvantaged? When I go to the workplace am I not going to be as valuable?”  In other words, students believed that if they weren’t able to do a project alone, they couldn’t consider themselves an expert engineer.” 

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Seed magazine has an interesting opinion piece by Paola Antonelli, the senior curator of design at NY’s MOMA.

She touches on the sea changes in influence, educational centers and professional practices that are redrawing the once static map of design.  Her basic thesis:

 As the focus of design shifts from the production of finite goods to a practice of experimentation, ideas take precedence over products. 

An outstanding new book, Brain Landscape, argues that the time is ripe to develop paradigms that deeply integrate neuroscientific insights into architectural design practice and create classrooms that impact the cognitive processes of children, hospital rooms that impact the recovery rate of patients and work environments that improve white collar productivity as well as other spaces that favorably impact the brain.

The book is a treasure trove for the cognitive designer. The author, John Eberhard, provides grand vision:

“It seems likely that just as 19th-century physics underlay the development of 20th-century engineering applications, so neuroscience (combined with genetics) will become the basis for new applied science tools in the 21st century. In the next few decades it is likely that the fundamental aspects of neuroscience will become the domain of a new generation of applied social and behavioral scientists, engineers and architects.” 

 As well as a number of well-grounded hypotheses that are specific enough to guide design work:

“A child provided with a space that is appropriately scaled to his or her size will have an adjusted sense of time and space that leads to reduced stress, greater feelings of security, and increased competence.”

The book is a bit pricey but is available at a modest discount as a Kindle edition.

Talk about cognitive design in the large! These research parks are city-sized environments designed to maximize the innovation  and productivity of scientists and supporting knowledge workers. The idea is not only to provide a place to work but also a place to live, play and grow.  

There are a dozen or so worldwide, some old and many very new.  For a whirlwind tour check out this slideshow or the entire BusinessWeek article, Research Parks for the Knowledge Economy.