Cognitive Design

Improvisation as an art form has been used in a variety of ways to stimulate creativity and innovation in the workplace -sometimes as just a metaphor for team interactions but also as a training technique.  As cognitive designers, we are interested in understanding the science behind why it works so that we can take it to the next level of application. 

Seed Magazine published an interesting note, Creation on Demand, that provides some insights.  Seed covers two recent fMRI (brain scan) studies that reveal improv is a choreographed set of mental events. 

“These two brain-scanning studies provide an elegant view into our seething cauldron. They reveal a brain able to selectively silence that which keeps us silent. And just when we’ve found the courage to create something new, the brain surprises us with an expression of ourselves. We suddenly find our reflection—not in the mirror, or even in our words. It’s in the music. ”

Designs that seek to tap the power of improv must get participants to worry less about what they are trying to create and more about simply expressing themselves. Imagine features and functions that encourage and even prize raw unfiltered self-expression.  Clearly not the  typical mood on a corporate innovation team worried about the voice of the customer, deadlines and what upper management thinks. 

One view on cognition holds that our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and other mental functions are strongly shaped by how our bodies interact with the world. Examples of embodied cognition include talking/thinking with your hands, working things out (solving a problem) by taking a walk, smiling to lift your mood, remembering something by rubbing your head and so on.

These effects are not trivial and are likely fundamental to the nature of mind. This means as cognitive designers we must always be on the look out for scientific insights into how we can synchronize mental processes and body movements to improved cognitive performance.  

For example, a new study from the Netherlands, Body Locomotion as a Regulatory Process,  suggests that physically taking a step back from a difficult situation may in fact trigger higher-order cognitive control functions.   The control functions help us direct our behaviors and attentional processes to more effectively deal with the situation.  So just as the distraction task of counting to 10 helps us self-regulate our emotions,  physically stepping back from a problematical situations will help us self-regulate cognitive resources (e.g. refocus and attend to new information).

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The market for software-based training that promises to improve your visual recognition, memory and other basic cognitive functions is growing, at least according to a new report from SharpBrains. The report, The State of The Brain Fitness Software Market 2009, claims the current market is $285M and could exceed $1B by 2015. 

It is a bit pricey ($1295) but you can read the 10 main conclusions for free.  Interest is growing, applications are spreading but outcomes are unclear.   

I am still waiting for a browser plugin or widget for my Word Processor that painlessly builds brain training into my everyday work routine. 

Creating designs that help people manage issues of self control and regulation is a central challenge in cognitive design.   Staying on a diet, doing your exercises, avoiding smoking/drinking, saving rather than spending or making other value laden decisions requires willpower. 

Some believe willpower is a character trait not a brain or cognitive function. Fortunately, researchers at the California Institute of Technology may have dispelled that belief by pinpointing the Mechanism of Self-Control in the Brain.  

They found:

“While everyone uses the same single area of the brain to make these sorts of value-laden decisions, a second brain region modulates the activity of the first region in people with good self-control, allowing them to weigh more abstract factors–healthiness, for example–in addition to basic desires such as taste to make a better overall choice.” 

Looking at the diagram (Credit: Caltech/Todd Hare) the green region is the self-control center and the red region is the area that supports making the value laden decision.  We all have the red region but not the green, at least not to the same extent. Those with more green have more willpower!

Although this finding does not providing specific guidance for cognitive designers seeking to “design for willpower”, it does provide some support for believing such efforts will be effective.