Cognitive Design

In my leadership class at Northwestern University we spend time learning how to identify the basic assumptions that make up the shared mental model in a given culture. These can run deep, as deep as philosophy.  For example, some cultures believe fundamentally in the ability of science to produce objective knowledge while other cultures don’t  even know science and believe in oral history as the primary source of knowledge.   Or less dramatically, some corporations believe in making decisions based on data and math while others are happy to follow the intuitions of a small group of leaders.

Basic assumptions go unquestioned and usually involve beliefs in what is real, how you acquire knowledge and truth and what constitutes value.

So I am always on the lookout for new insights into the basic assumptions that shape how groups of people perceive the world, think, make decisions and behave. Take for example the excellent article and interview in Strategy + Business on the Dueling Myths of Business.  The article identifies five basic assumptions about economics (seeking growth), ecology (seeking health of  a larger system),  heroics (seeking to win), religion (seeking goodness) and science (seeking truth through reason).

Each of the basic assumption is rooted deeply in human psychology:

“The idea of business, for example, is a very powerful human creation, based on the economic myth: The best thing to do is to grow as large as possible. This myth is closely linked to the parental impulse, which is one of the most powerful impulses that human beings have.”

And they all have limits, for example:

“The ecological myth says that the health of a whole system depends on complex interrelationships. It therefore tries to take everyone’s needs into account, which can lead to immense expense and gridlock.”

Understanding what your group believes around each of the five basic  assumptions can help leaders mitigate disputes as well as guide fundamental change. They are also an excellent source of insights for cognitive designers looking to create processes and programs that improve group performance.

Source of image: Deep Well

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

Historically we have measured general intelligence using a single number – IQ. That’s not a good idea according to research led by the Brain and Mind Institute at Western University in Canada. They put a set of 12 standardized tests that measure reasoning, planning, memory and other aspects of intelligence online and got some 100,000 people to complete them. Researchers ran a few subjects through a fMRI scanner as they completed the test so they could also look at the activity in various brain regions.

What they found was that human intelligence  emerges from the interaction of three independent cognitive components including working memory, reasoning and a verbal component.

They published the results as Fractionating Human Intelligence, in the journal Neuron.

The amount of data generated  on IQ is unprecedented and is rich in finding relevant for cognitive designers. For example:

“Intriguingly, people who regularly played computer games did perform significantly better in terms of both reasoning and short-term memory. And smokers performed poorly on the short-term memory and the verbal factors, while people who frequently suffer from anxiety performed badly on the short-term memory factor in particular”.

You can access the tests they used online for free at Cambridge Brain Science.  You can also participate in the next round of the study HERE. These test are useful tools for cognitive designers interested in showing their innovations are improving baseline intelligence.

For other practical tools for estimating  impact on cognition check out measure how well your brain works and measure your cognitive performance.

I am interested to hear from readers that take these tests or use them in cognitive design work.

Bad things tend to have a bigger impact on our thoughts, feelings and actions than good things do.   Recent research suggests, Greed Not Generosity is More Likely to be Paid Forward.

“In five experiments involving money or work, participants who received an act of generosity didn’t pay generosity forward any more than those who had been treated equally. But participants who had been the victims of greed were more likely to pay greed forward to a future recipient, creating a negative chain reaction.”

While this is not a “happy finding” it is important for cognitive designers.  Generosity is less a contagion than greed just as bad news spreads much faster and farther than good news.  While this is likely tied to survival and rooted in our evolution it can limit cooperation and cultural development.  You can access the full paper for free HERE.

Scientific American has a short article that does a good job summarizing the Three Critical Elements that Sustain Motivation.  While we have covered the elements  extensively on the Cognitive Design blog, it is worthwhile to review. The elements that sustain motivation include self-determination, value and competence.    To keep going on tough tasks it is important to feel in charge, that the activity is worthwhile, you have the skill to get started and those skills improve with time.  This helps to explain why some children avoid math and spend hours on video games.

While this seems simple, a complicating factor is that many of the challenges we face are forced on us by external factors.  There is a change at work that requires we learn new skills or the doctors tells us its time for a lifestyle change.  In both cases there is no sense of autonomy, a differed sense of value and a perception of incompetence.   Many of the motivational remedies offered seem straight forward but take considerable skill to use in practice, especially on groups.

For example, to help me feel like I am setting direction  my boss puts me on a team to help define the details of  the change or my doctor lets me select a plan of exercise and diet.  The hope is I will become engaged in making critical decision and develop a sense of ownership.  After a while I might even think it is my idea. Of course I need to have enough motivation to work on the team or make the lifestyle decisions.  And unfortunately,  I was assigned the task, won’t see the immediate value to it nor feel particularly competent at it.  Not much motivation for doing the task that is suppose to help me get motivated. A bit of a regress.

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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 placebo is a substance with no medicinal properties that can nevertheless have therapeutic effects on some people.  Sometimes called sugar pills or sham medicine, they produce real changes in our psychology, bodies and well being.   How and why they work is a bit of a mystery but recent research  led by the University of Michigan Medical School suggests personality factors play a role.

Researcher tested a dozen healthy subjects for a response to a pain placebo. They found angry or hostile type subjects showed little response whereas those that were resilient, trustworthy and altruistic showed the best response. To quote:

“We ended up finding that they greatest influence came from a series of factors related to individual resiliency, the capacity to withstand and overcome stressors and difficult situations. People with those factors had the greatest ability to take environmental information — the placebo — and convert it to a change in biology.”

The change in biology here refers to the fact that they are generating natural pain killers at multiple sites in their brain.

While this study needs to be replicated on larger groups the fact that adaptive personality traits make the best use of placebos will catch some by surprise.

As we have reported elsewhere on the Cognitive Design Blog placebo effects are widespread and real. They even work with processes or rituals that don’t involve pills, injections or clinical equipment.   The door is wide-open for some creative cognitive designers to develop ethical uses of the placebo effect to address any number of organizational and individual challenges. How about a pill or ritual that accelerates organizational change or doubles my creativity?

The perception of time plays a critical role in service and experience design. Things can seem to take forever or end way too soon for a variety of psychological reasons.  So I am always on the look out for new cognitive science studies on time perception that have implications for designers.

For instance , recent research has uncovered that if we know two events are causally connected we expect them to be close together in time.   One implication is that our knowledge of causation can seriously distort our perception of time and therefore the nature of experience we have.  An example  from the research:

” if people believe that they (or someone or something else) are in charge, the time appears to pass faster.”

Another example is the time experience after pushing an elevator button. If I push it, the elevator seems to take a long time. On the other hand if you push it, the elevator appears to arrive promptly.

From a cognitive design standpoint  this puts a premium on understanding the cause-and-effect assumptions we use to access the features in products and services.  There is an opportunity to leverage (not change) them to use temporal binding and create a more positive experience.

I am interested to hear from readers that  have used design to warp time experience. What causal assumptions did you leverage?

A recent paper on Self Determination Theory Applied to Health Contexts: A Meta-Analysis,  claims that health behaviors will change when people feel autonomous, capable and cared for.  More specifically, I am most likely to change when I:

1. Believe it is my conscious choice or under the control of my will
2. Have or can acquire the skills needed to make the change
3. Feel a sense of relatedness or understood and cared for.

These conditions create or correspond to intrinsic motivation for the change.

The paper emphasizes that health behavior change lasts when the program designed to bring it about meets the autonomy or volitional needs of participants.  That means understanding and respecting a person’s interests, values and choices in the change process.  It also means fostering their independence rather than dependence on an externally controlled change process.  This maximizes the chance that new routines will be deeply internalized and therefore last.

As cognitive designers know, meeting the volitional or autonomy requirement is hard because many will feel helpless or overwhelmed. Further,  many will have made choices or hold values that undermine the new health behaviors.   For example, I chose to smoke or be inactive. How can you respect that and help me stop smoking or starting moving more?  Resolving these conflicts takes time and considerable experimentation.

The best programs will be patient and offer a caring approach to learning from experience. They will transform initially external motivators into intrinsic motivations.

The key is to provide authentic emotional support and global change control while leaving more specific choices up to the individual. For example, the global goal may be to reduce calories using portion control but it is up to the individual to decide and experiment with ways to achieve that in their daily activities.

Health behaviors stick when I learn the new routines needed to support through volitional actions.

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.