Cognitive Design

“Based on our considerations, we call for a presumption that mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs.”

Or so argue seven highly credentialed scholars in their commentary in the prestigious journal Nature, titled, Towards the Responsible Use of Cognition-Enhancing Drugs by the Health.

Using prescription-only drugs such as Adderall or Ritalin, or entirely new drugs, to boost brain power would certainly provide a powerful new tool for cognitive designers or anyone interested in improving cognition.  Check out their argument in the article and let me know what you think.  Nature has also set up a public Forum for you to provide a personal answer to:

Should we use drugs to enhance cognitive performance?

How, what and why we remember things plays a very important role in learning, decision-making, emotional experience and many other aspects cognition.  Understanding memory is of critical importance to anyone that hopes to design for how minds actually work. For example,  understanding how memory works means we can add features and functions to products and services that trigger particular memories and therefore stimulate emotions and personal meaning.  

The Cognitive Daily blog has an excellent post on the latest research into the nature of autobiographical memory (ABM) or memories about ourselves and our lives.   A recap of the findings: 

Adults have few accurate ABMs before age five.

 ABM is systematically biased with positive life events easier to recall than negative life events.

 ABMs appear uneven in that a 50-year old is more likely to remember something from their late teens or early 20s than from their 30s.

 This last finding is the most interesting for cognitive designers.

(more…)

A typical assignment for a cognitive designer is to create a high-impact innovation program for a client organization. The goal is to design a socio-technical system made up of a coherent set of policies, rewards, management behaviors, development experiences, collaboration systems and even business models that will increase the ability of the organization to turn new ideas into products and services.  

 [Image source:  Jenni Idea Management]

The idea factory shown above may be the desired future state given the traditional view of mind in business but what do we know about how minds actually innovate at work and in the market? Recent commentary in the science journal Nature on The Innovative Brain, provides three potential insights for cognitive designers.

(more…)

As a cognitive designer using information technology (IT) to improve healthcare, I am always on the lookout for new applications that support or improve how clinicians, patients and family members think-and-feel.  

One very interesting approach in the news is PatientsLikeMe.   The site uses a social networking model to form online communities around specific conditions such as MS, Bipolar, Parkinson and HIV/AIDS.   Members create detailed profiles of their history, condition and treatments that is freely shared with other members in the community. To make money the member’s data is packaged (with permission) and sold to insurance, medical device and pharmaceutical companies to support clinical trials and health studies.

Asking patients to participate in their electronic care so extensively, sharing health information so freely (PatientsLikeMe has an openess philosophy as well as privacy statement on their website) and then selling the data  to “big brother” (insurance and drug companies) flies in the face of the traditional model that minimizes the role of the patient, locks health data in an electronic vault (privacy at all costs) and shuns selling it to vendors.

Patients help each other on a daily basis by providing information, advice, emotional support and even second opinions. The software provides each member a  powerful visual history of their condition that clearly shows progress or decline.

The cognitive design of PatientsLikeMe is unique not only in the way it presents information but in the way it reshapes how patients think-and-feel about self care.  It is a platform for creating patient practitioners with all the promise and risk that entails.

(more…)

According to Dr. Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke, and author of the interesting book, Predictably Irrational, the offer of a huge bonus does not improve cognitive performance.  He makes his argument in a recent piece in the New York Times, What’s The Value of A Big Bonus?.

In the article he describes several experiments that demonstrate those offered very large bonuses actually do worse on a cognitive task than those offered a medium or even small bonus.

Many have pointed out that money may not motivate those that think for a living.  But this research goes further:

Given in the wrong dose (too much) money may worsen our performance on tasks that require learning, thinking, decision-making, creativity and other forms of cognition.  

We need to be careful to design compensation and reward systems for how minds actually work, not how we think they should work.

Emergency vehicles are often slowed by traffic or are involved in accidents because drivers in pedestrian vehicles cannot hear their sirens. Effective interior sound proofing in your car, some hearing loss due to age, ear phones, blaring radios and other conditions means we sometimes cannot hear an emergency vehicle coming. 

Not hearing sirens (a cognitive or sensory design problem) is the number one cause of accidents involving emergency and pedestrian vehicles.

Increasing the volume of sirens is likely not the answer but changing the frequency so the sound penetrates the car and vibrates the driver’s body so that they feel it could be.  This is the idea behind the Howler siren.

The new “feel me coming” siren is being put to use in Tulsa Oklahoma and South Fort Meyers Florida.  At a cost of $400 per siren they are expected to pay for themselves immediately by avoiding accidents.

Most people when they travel like to know what they are getting into even if it does not change what they do. Maps, cultural information, weather, exchange rates, terror alert levels and so on all help meet our “cognitive need” of being and feeling prepared for travel.

One big gap, until recently,  has been information on communicable diseases like colds and flu. You can now get a widget or mobile phone application from Zicam that tracks and reports on five different levels of cold and flu symptoms in a given location. To get an example alert go here and type in the zip code for the area of interest.

In addition to an alert level, the mobile service provides cold and flu news, coupons and the location of the nearest retailer.  

[Source: Zicam.  CLICK IMAGE for more readable version] 

Like Yahoo weather and Google maps, I now use the Zicam Cold and Flu widget to plan trips in the winter.  It lets me know if I am going into a hot zone or not.  This helps me be more vigilant (more hand washing less eye/face rubbing) and avoid unnecessary worry. Most of all it helps meet my cognitive need to feel more prepared for the uncertainties and risks of travel.

Good cognitive design!

When people have to wait in line you have a cognitive design problem.  If you have customers (or employees) waiting in line you must attend to how they think-and-feel if you want a successful service experience.

The Psychology of Waiting Lines by David Maister, a well-known expert on the management of professional services firms,  offers these insights (taken directly from the article):

1. Occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time

2. People want to get started

3. Solo waits are longer than group waits

4. Anxiety makes the wait seem longer

5. Uncertain waits are longer than known finite waits

6. Unexplained waits are longer than explained waits

7. Unfair weights are longer than equitable waits

8. The more valuable the service the longer the customer will wait

Donald Norman from Northwestern University has recently reviewed and updated (2008) Maister’s original work on the Psychology of Waiting Lines .

(more…)

Received a number of comments and emails from my previous post on signs that make us think and feel including this great example from “The Crowski” in West Lafayette Indiana: 

Powerful emotional persuasion to get you to change driving behavior. Well done!

(more…)

Cognitive designers are always on the lookout for new functionality that supports or extends how people perceive, remember, think, feel and relate.

Telepresence or the ability to project yourself from a remote location has always been high on the list.  Talking from a speaker box, viewing from a web cam, or controlling devices remotely over the Internet (e.g. to collect vital signs in telehealth) are good examples of low-cost functionality that can be included in the cognitive design of distributed  educational, work or living systems.

 Telepresence is a growing consumer application. People want to be able to check on or visit their aging parents, children, new grand kids, pets or home from a remote location.  

iRobot is developing a new system ConnectR, to help us do that. This $500 personal robot will let us visit, move around in and interact with (see and speak) remote locations. In essence, ConnectR is a mobile camera with speakers, microphone and a headlight that you can control over the Internet.   

It is like having an avatar but for the real-world.   

It is not commercially released yet but you can see a demo on YouTube.