Cognitive Design

A belief in a god or gods and the institutions and practices that go along with it are a powerful psychological experience for millions of people daily. The opportunities for cognitive designers to learn from and enhance that experience are numerous. Some examples:

• Are Megachurches Masterstrokes of Cognitive Design?
• Are Believers Better Self-Regulators?
• Design Inspirations from Extreme Mental States 

So I am always on the look out for scientific studies on the nature of religious beliefs, experiences and artifacts with insights that are useful for cognitive designers.

Take for example, the recent article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences on the Origins of Religious Disbelief.   The researchers argue that non-belief flows from cognitive, motivational and cultural learning sources and takes four different forms.  An excellent framework for cognitive designers working on programs to convert non-believers. The article also catalogs some 9 mechanisms involved in driving the intensity of religious beliefs that could be used to inform the design of religious artifacts and experiences.

I am interested to hear from readers that are working on applications in religion.

Source of Image: Religious Symbols

Machines are getting smarter and that good news for cognitive designers. It increases the range of options we have for offloading mental effort from people to machines. Lowering the cognitive load on individuals and groups during work or play is an important trend in technology.  Google helps us search the world’s information, eharmony helps us find a mate and our mobile phone helps us navigate.  So I am always on the lookout for insights into the limits and trends of artificial intelligence that might be useful for designers.

Take, IBM’s 5 in 5 for example. They provide a short introduction into how machine perception will develop over the next five years. They look at emerging machine capabilities  in all five human senses – vision, hearing, smell, touch and taste – in video and story map form.   They offer predictions within the broader view of cognitive systems.

Bottom line – cognitive designers need to be up to speed on the costs, risks and functional capabilities of current and emerging capabilities in artificial intelligence. How else can we design for how minds (people and machine) really work?

Image Source:  Innovations that will change our lives in the next five years.

Writers that use specific adjectives that vividly invoke our senses sell more books. At least that is the result from research at Purdue. The finding holds for children and adult books as well as classic works and contemporary best sellers.  The title of the study playfully attempts to illustrate the finding - A Ridiculously Unbelievably Preposterous Conclusion: Use of Adjectives in Best-Selling Book.

Sensory adjectives are those that are directly connected to taste, touch, smell, hearing or seeing. For example, grubby, tart, musty and immense are sensory adjectives.  The study found for example, that Mark Twain used approximately 17 adjectives in every 100 words written!

Source of image: EducationWorld

A lot of my consulting work centers on using cognitive design to encourage health behavior change. Using insights into how our minds actually work, I design messaging, programs, systems, incentives, environments and other artifacts that help people achieve lasting behavior change.  So I am always on the look out for new studies that shed practical light on the issue.

For example, the Customer Experience Matters Blog  has an interesting post that looks at who patients take advice from and what it takes to get them to act on it.   Some of the survey findings are what you would expect (e.g. we trust doctors more than insurance companies when it comes to taking medical  advice) but one surprise is:

“As it turns out, about half of consumers that are satisfied with their recent interactions with pharma companies and health plans are likely to follow medical advice from those firms.”

While about half might not seem like much that is up from less than 10% of those that are not satisfied.

The willingness to act on medical advice jumps up significantly when consumers feel satisfied with the interaction.

This holds true with taking medical advice from doctors too. The percentage increases over 50%!  An important finding as it means patient satisfaction scores play a key role in achieving health outcomes at least when it comes to conditions requiring continued compliance with a treatment plan.

The management innovation exchange, a open innovation site dedicated to reinventing management, just announced a new innovation contest aimed at improving how organizations innovate. Here is what they want:

 ”In the M-Prize we’re launching today, we’re looking for examples and ideas that will help us how build innovation into the woof and warp of our organizations.  While there aren’t many businesses that have yet made innovation a true core competence, we can, with your help, build a composite picture of how every element of a company’s management model can be retooled to make it innovation-friendly. “

The hope is that by retooling the management model in this way innovation will become a natural act.  Definitely an important cognitive design challenge.

I am interested to hear from readers that want to create a HACK to enter this contest.

Deloitte’s Center for the Edge has released a new report on how to achieve broad internal change. In a nutshell they argue we need to focus on the edges rather than the core, emphasize passion over skill, run lean on resources, seek funding externally and learn in fast iterative cycles.

Edges are not a place but a condition. They include any group/idea that is linked to fundamental shifts that are happening in the marketplace, take little initial investment, can generate new revenue (does not cannibalize) and has the long-run potential for transforming the core.  For example, think about cloud computing for an IT services company.

While edges may seem a bit radical to some readers, keep in mind we need some new ways of achieving organizational learning and change. As the report points out:

“Large companies that attempt to enact major change fail more often than not; in fact, only an estimated one-third of major change efforts accomplish the goal they originally  set out to achieve.”

One reason edges work is that they have good cognitive design. Focusing on passion, rapid learning and a non-threatening external orientation definitely moves hearts and accelerates minds.  In many ways, edges put the psychological needs of innovators first without entering into conflict with established projects, practices and revenue priorities.

I get that question a lot.  The expanded version is can we use cognitive design to create an online experience that is as rich and meaningful as face-to-face interaction?  While there are a few exceptions, my general answer is yes.  And in some ways we can create something much better!

To make the case I am always on the look out for scientific studies that explore the issue, especially ones that look at cognitively-deep interactions. For example, a recent article in the Journal of Internet Medical Research examined how well we can create the mental health therapeutic experience online.   How well does e-therapy work compared to in person treatment? Here is what the researchers found:

 ”Although the results do not allow firm conclusions, they indicate that e-therapy seems to be at least equivalent to face-to-face therapy in terms of therapeutic alliance, and that there is a relationship between the therapeutic alliance and e-therapy outcome.”

This is based on a review of 849 studies of which only 11 dealt  with the therapeutic relationship.  Not a big sample so the authors are calling for more research.  No matter, this finding is surprising given the importance of non-verbal information in conducting mental health therapy.

That’s the question that McKinsey Global Research asked nearly 3000 executives across a range of company sizes and industries.  They found that most organizations use multiple independent structures and they work best when fully integrated with strategy and are actively supported by the C-suite.  The types of innovation structures firms are using include incubators, innovation centers, new business development functions, emerging business opportunities groups, emerging technology business groups and advanced technology institutes.

While there are no surprises in these findings it summarizes important information for anyone involved in designing innovation capabilities. It also clearly signals that the innovation imperative is alive at well at the executive level.

 Watch the video.

The statistics on lying and cheating are alarming. It is little wonder that clients ask – how can I tell if employees and customer are lying or cheating?  They are hoping that cognitive design offers additional insights beyond cross-referencing questions, checking sources and the like.  So I am always on the lookout for new scientific insights into the psychology of lying, faking and cheating.

Take for example, a recent  LiveScience report on research that suggests we tend to lie when under time pressure or when we feel personally justified in doing do.   When pressed for time we often look out for our own interests first and lying can serve that.   Examples of personal justifications include – it won’t hurt anyone to lie, everyone is lying or I can’t get caught!

These are practical findings.  Be sure to give people the time to do the right thing and work to surface and eliminate justifications that support lying.