Designing Objects the Soothe Us
Some objects, activities and rituals are naturally soothing. For example, a favorite shirt that is torn and tattered. They decrease stress and help us feel centered, relax and sometimes even happy. Understanding how these soothers work and injecting that capability in other designs is a great opportunity for cognitive designers. So I am always on the look out for scientific insights into how artifacts can relax us.
Take for example, the study soon to be released in Psychological Science, Comfort Food Fights Loneliness.
“The study came out of the research program of his co-author Shira Gabriel, which has looked at social surrogates—non-human things that make people feel like they belong. Some people counteract loneliness by bonding with their favorite TV show, building virtual relationships with a celebrity or a movie character, or looking at pictures and mementos of loved ones. Troisi and Gabriel wondered if comfort food could have the same effect by making people think of their nearest and dearest.”
And they found that it did. As the quote above indicates, comfort food is not the only way we relieve social stress. TV, celebrity admiration, family photos and other social surrogates work too. From a cognitive design standpoint we need to understand the features and functions that cause soothing and why they work.
