Cognitive Design

It is now well known, and to some degree accepted, that specific types of cognitive biases can have a big impact on our decision making process. For example, the recency effect suggests that we give too much weight to the last paper we read or presentation we hear. Or the gambler’s fallacy that “someone must win” leads to all manner of distorted decisions and investments.  There are literally hundreds of such biases that warp (from the perfectly rational) our decision-making processes on everything from buying a lottery ticket to deciding on a career.

An interesting HBR post on Managing Atmospherics in Decision Making, takes it one step further.  The author, Rob Duboff,  argues that our decision-making process is influenced by a host of external factors such as color, music, appeal to authority and priming that he calls atmospherics. To quote:

 ”It’s not just that decision-makers don’t refer to data in making choices – they don’t even necessarily decide based on “gut feel.” Decisions are being made because of external and seemingly extraneous factors that work on a wholly unconscious level, bypassing even the gut.”

This is important for cognitive designers because it shifts the focus of attention from “the gut”  or the realm of cognitive biases to external factors.

The Management Innovation Exchange (MIX)  in cooperation with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) recently conducted a hackathon involving some 1700 HR professionals and business leaders aimed at cracking the code on agility.  They released a report that summarizes nearly a 150 ideas organized into 9 design principles ranging from experimentation and learning to purpose and meaning.  Nearly all of the design principles involve individual or group cognition and should be of interest to readers of the cognitive design blog.

For example, one idea to is facilitate corporate earthquakes:

“The Corporate Earthquakes hack is all about crafting and anticipating an organization’s future by envisioning the unthinkable nightmares and dreams of tomorrow. This is done by designing and running corporate-wide hackathons focused on extreme, unusual, apocalyptic and why-not challenges and situations.  The process is designed to be fun and inspire creativity, with possible corporate earthquakes including everything from likely industry shifts to unlikely events like mass alien abductions. “

How we use our bodies impacts our thinking, learning, decision-making and other cognitive functions. The entire field of embodied cognition is devoted to understanding how body behaviors and mental performance interact.   For example, literally “stepping back”, folding your arms or walking around have all been shown to improve problem solving outcomes.

Findings in embodied cognition are especially relevant for designers because they tell you what people should do to produce specific mental states. So I am always on the look out for new scientific finding in embodied cognition. Take for example the recent work at the University of Cologne on hand washing.

Not only did they find that it tends to make you more optimistic after a failure, but they found that it leads to poorer performance in the same context.

This is a strange result as we normally associate optimism with higher levels of performance.  Here is the explanation:

“… it can be concluded from the results that while physical cleansing after failure may eliminate negative feelings, it reduces the motivation to try harder in a new test situation to restore one’s own perception of competence. Hence, physical cleansing seems to result in being in a better position to deal with failure.”

Clearly more research is needed but it does bring to mind the old metaphor or saying: I am washing my hands of this situation.