Cognitive Design

Scams targeting older adults come in many shapes and sizes.  Unfortunately, they work amazing well and often go unreported out of fear and shame. Many assume that senior scams work because older adults have experienced some form of cognitive decline. Senior scams are designed to exploit the impaired decision-making, reading and memory skills of older adults.

Recent research paints a more complex picture. One with strong implications for those designing solutions to defeat the scamers.  For an excellent summary see the article in Scientific American on the Psychology Behind Seniors’  Susceptibility to Scams. They point out that it is not just cognitive decline that is being exploited but shifting cognitive needs. It turns out that older adults worry less about losing money because:

“As people age and begin to feel that their time is limited, some researchers suggest, they seek out emotional fulfillment. This tendency to focus on the positive changes the decisions older people make.”

This has been confirmed with controlled studies and brain scans:

“When expecting a loss, however, younger and older adults responded differently. Younger adults reported being more upset and showed higher blood flow in the insula, a part of the brain implicated in negative emotions. As the amount of money at stake increased, so did negative feelings and insula activation. The older adults, on the other hand, didn’t feel as bad as younger adults did, and showed less activation in the insula.”

Senior scams are working because they exploit this positivity effect. This is not a form of cognitive decline but signals a shift in cognitive need as we age. And there are likely others. For example, in my cognitive design workshop several teams have observed that reading the mail can become a ritualized and high-meaning event for seniors. 

As with all applications of cognitive design, we need to understand the underlying cognitive processes and psychological needs (intellectual, affective, motivational, volitional) to create solutions that move hearts and minds.  So far the scammers have figured this out better than those that would prevent them.

Fresh from the Association of Psychological Science comes the claim that Anger Makes People Want Things More. Here is the experimental setup:

“For the study, each participant watched a computer screen while images of common objects, like a mug or a pen, appeared on the screen. What they didn’t realize was that immediately before each object appeared, the screen flashed either a neutral face, an angry face, or a fearful face. This subliminal image tied an emotion to each object. At the end of the experiment, the participants were asked how much they wanted each object.”

Subjects picked the objects with the angry face prime over the neutral and fearful face prime. They did not report feeling anger towards the more desirable objects only that they liked them.

Thinking about the future is a very emotional experience at least according to Eugene Caruso, a behavioral scientist at the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago. More specifically, in a new paper Dr. Caruso reported on experiments that suggest contemplating future events evokes far stronger emotional responses than reflecting on related past events.  For example, thinking about potential future insults as compared to past transgressions or contemplating giving  to charity in the future versus a donation given in the past.

The work is summarized nicely in EurekaAlerts:

“Why then is the future more evocative than the past? In general, people respond to future situations with heightened emotions as a way to prepare themselves for action, Caruso said. Thus, even though they do not actually have control over something that is about to happen — as the study’s experiments show — this “overlearned” response to the future persists.

Moreover, people seem to be good at rationalizing and making sense of emotional experiences. Once these events have passed, they become ordinary and the emotions associated with them less extreme.”

This is an important finding for cognitive designers. Retro designs are used to trigger reminiscing and the emotions of the past. Perhaps there is more mental energy to be found in what-if designs that trigger futurizing and emotions yet to come.

In cognitive design we must make every effort to understand the psychological needs of others. These include emotional, intellectual, motivational and volition or those involved in making active conscious choices. Discovering deeply felt yet unrecognized cognitive needs is often enough to light the way to block buster designs.

So I am always on the lookout for interesting new ways to probe the mind and uncover new cognitive needs.  A colleague recently shared a link to a site that catalogs a growing movement around expressing with picture and text why you do what you do or WYDWYD for short.   The main site it here and an interesting collection of responses is here.

According to Wired, WDYDWYD started in 2004 and has been growing since. This signals a clear existential need people have to express their purpose in life to others. Take note cognitive designers. It is also interesting as technique to probe cognitive needs. Clearly each purpose statement reveals specific inclinations and associated needs and wants at the psychological level. WDYDWYD might be a simple, low-cost and fun way to help surface deep cognitive needs!

Priming is a powerful psychological technique.  It involves exposure to a specific stimulus (often repeatedly), a short delay and then the completion of a task. How you complete the task is influenced by the stimulus which “primes you” to act in a certain way.  You have an implicit memory of the stimulus which is used to complete the task. It can be surprising powerful especially when the priming stimulus is carefully selected and we are doing the task in automatic mode.

For example, a recent research study from the University of Pennsylvania found that priming can influence how we decide to spend our time.  For specifics see, Thoughts About Time Inspire People to Socialize:

“A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people who are made to think about time plan to spend more of their time with the people in their lives while people who think about money fill their schedules with work, work, and—you guessed it—more work.” 

Being primed to think about time influences a decision to socialize versus a prime about money which influences a decision to work. This effect was found in both a lab and real world setting.

The psychological need to share is a powerful force, especially when it involves trust.   Cognitive designers that are able to create new ways of sharing or more shareable products, services and experiences are achieving success.  To see how this is working in some detail check out the new book and website, What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption.The book illustrates a mega shift from hyper consumption to collaborative consumption driven by peer-to-peer sharing networks enabled by the Internet. We can now efficiently share everything:

“From enormous marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist, to emerging sectors such as social lending (Zopa) and car sharing (Zipcar), Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business and reinventing not just what we consume but how we consume.

New marketplaces such as Swap.com, Zilok, Bartercard, AirBnb, and thredUP are enabling “peer-to-peer” to become the default way people exchange — whether it’s unused space, goods, skills, money, or services — and sites like these are appearing everyday, all over the world.”

We have looked at many of these sites on the Cognitive Design Blog before but not as an emerging design pattern.   Designing for shareability (collaborative consumption) not only satisfies deep cognitive needs it is a powerful way to tap underutilized capacity, dramatically lower costs, shift behavior patterns and bring people closer together.

Very interested to hear from readers that have insight into how we can transform traditional products and assets into something that is collaboratively consumable.

Check out the new game on Facebook called Healthseeker.  It was designed to use the psychological power of social game play to encourage healthier eating habits and lifestyle choices. 

The picth is that getting healthier (more specifically managing diabetes risk) can be fun and happen with a little help from your friends.  You select goals, chose a mission, earn experience points, give kudos, win badges, send challenges to friends and all the other social network dynamics that move heart-and-mind so well for hundreds of millions of people.  The game is new. It has approximately 4000 members and 400 fans.  The best description I have found so far is on Technology Review:

The challenge of this kind of game isn’t to convince people of something but to get them to act. “People are already emotionally committed to their health,” says Michael Fergusson, the founder and CEO of Ayogo. “They know they need to eat better and exercise.” But approaching that challenge all at once can seem overwhelming and thankless. “We pay them to take healthy actions,” says Fergusson. Reinforcing those small actions could turn them into habits that add up to better health.

They also discuss how other social games are changing behaviors.  Healthseeker is an important experiment. We need more like it.

How can we use the features and functions of online interaction (social networks, online 3D worlds, etc.) that have proven cognitive impact to encourage behavior change for individual and social good?

Check out the blog, What Makes Them Tick.  It is focused on applying psychology to how people think, work and relate. It has some interesting insights for cognitive designers.  The blog is documenting 100 Things You Should Know About People and does a nice job of delivering information that is actionable for designers. For example, consider #42 we will spend more money if you don’t mention it, #38 even the illusion of progress is motivating and #4  you imagine things from above and tilted.  Many of the items on the list have been covered in the cognitive design blog but it is useful to have them all pulled together.

Dr. Susan Weinschenk runs the blog and offers a free newsletter, has a book (Neuro Web Design which I plan on reading) and does seminars. She also has 58 more posts to go on the 100 things list!

In my neighborhood you will see signs in some yards with kids in an action pose running toward the street.  The signs are part of a campaign to get folks to drive more safely. The images are very life-like. I have often wondered (as a cognitive designer) what could be done to maximize their effectiveness.

Recently, I received some photos from the The Crowski in Lafayette that might begin to suggest an answer.   It turns out the city of Vancouver is painting a special image of a little girl chasing a ball in the middle of the street as part of a drive safe campaign.  The image is special as it looks three dimensional (3D) when you are close.  For quick introduction check out, Vancouver Uses Image of Girl to Slow Drivers.

From a distance the image looks like a blob.  As you approach, it slowly emerges in 3D as a little girl chasing the ball.  The goal is to increase driver vigilance but not cause people to swerve or slam on their brakes.  A post on Preventable.CA  provides more details:

“* The 2D decal gradually appears 3D to drivers approaching the image. A risk assessment of this project shows that drivers do not mistake this image for a real girl and can see the image 100 feet away. The image does not “jump-out” at drivers and there is no “startling effect”, the road conditions on 22nd Street are very good for this project, which is precisely why this location was selected.  Sight lines are perfect northbound along the road and to the cross streets.  Although the community continuously grapples with unsafe driving behaviours in this particular school zone, twenty-second (22nd) Street in West Vancouver has a very good vehicle crash record.”

What do you think?

A supernormal stimulus is any stimulus that has evolved or has been engineered to elicit a stronger than normal reaction.  A puzzle or mystery that you compulsively need to solve. A game you cannot stop playing (literally). A toy so cute you just must cuddle, nurture and protect it. A food or drink so tasty that you cannot “eat just one” but will literally eat or drink it until it is gone.  A photo so sexy that….

These stimuli are created by exaggerating the features of normal stimuli that we are hard wired to respond to.  For example, oversize, and super sad eyes to elicit the instinctual response to nurture.  Or foods engineered with unnaturally high levels of fat, sugar or salt will stimulate us to eat compulsively. Why else would triple patty hamburgers with cheese and bacon sell in the millions?

This gives us one formula for creating irresistible artifacts. Understand which features and functions are wired to instinctual responses and super size them.

You can super-size by literally making them bigger or by increasing the frequency of the effect.

Artifacts with supernormal stimuli tend to be irresistible and require considerable self control on the part of the consumer. Indeed, two recent books,  Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose and Waistland: The R/evolutionary science behind our weight and fitness crisis, argue that such artifacts are so irresistible that supernormal stimuli may be a root cause of our health, spending and anger related problems in the US.

Both books are a must read for cognitive designers interested in behavior change.   They catalog examples of supernormal stimuli in both nature and human society and give some insights into the features that are so effective at driving deep instinctual reactions.  

Let’s try to harness supernormal stimuli to makes use healthier, happier, smarter and more financially secure.