Cognitive Design

When we decide, solve a problem or learn something new, a cognitive bias is involved. Sometimes the bias plays a strong role in determining the outcome. Cognitive designers must be aware of the biases at play in an application and then created features and functions to either leverage the bias (e.g. buying lottery tickets) or mitigate the bias (e.g. employee hiring decisions). Over 100+ biases have been cataloged but I am always on the lookout for new ones.

For example, researchers at Brown University have a few studies that suggest we reason illogically when presented with weak evidence.  They found:

We tend to except predictions with no evidence more readily than we do predictions that have weak supporting evidence.

Said another way, we tend to reject predictions with a weak case over those with no case! Normally we expect more evidence to increase the degree of belief.  Why does this weak evidence effect work? The researcher suggest:

“Give people a weak reason and they’ll focus too much on it. Give people no evidence and they’ll supply their own probably more convincing reason to believe that the outcome is likely.”

This has important implications for cognitive designers especially those working on application involving persuasion. For the full article see When Good Evidence Goes Bad.

All cognitive designers and change managers should check out the work by Dr Neff, an associate professor of human development and culture at the University of Texas at Austin on Self Compassion.  The site includes assessment instruments, exercises, research articles, videos and more.

The concept of self compassion is straightforward  - having a mindful and open hearted or kind reguard for yourself especially when faced with your shortcomings. But according to the latest research it can have a big impact on how well we adapt to change. For example, a recent study showed that even a modest self-compassion intervention could significantly impact eating habits.

Including specific self-compassion interventions (positive self-talk, journaling, best/worse trait analysis, mindfulness training, etc.)  in your next organizational change program could improve outcomes. This is especially true since our traditional approach to organizational change tends to emphasize what is wrong and implicitly encourages people to be self critical.

Interested to hear from readers that have used self-compassion interventions in change programs.

One of the major differences between cognitive design and related fields such as human factors is that cognitive design seeks to create specific mental states in people. In extreme cognitive design, the mental state (e.g. pride, humor, comfort or awe) is exactly what is being designed. So I am always on the lookout for precise theories of mental states with clear design implications. Equations are the best.

Take for example the work of Alastair Clarke on humor.  As reported in ScienceDaily - we live in an information intense culture and face the constant risk of making errors or being deceived:

To compensate, humor rewards us for seeing through misinformation that has come close to taking us in. The pleasure we get (h) is calculated by multiplying the degree of misinformation perceived (m) by the extent to which the individual is susceptible to taking it seriously (s)

This equation for humor, H = M * S,  has clear implications for designers.

Angry Birds is a strong candidate for the most successful game of all time. With nearly 100 million downloads it sees some 1.2 billion of hours of play every year! A masterful cognitive design on the order of lottery tickets.  To understand which features and functions are generating the impact check out the excellent post on the cognitive teardown of the user experience.

I will quote some key findings from the post below but strongly urge you get the game, play it yourself and share insights into why it works.

Read the rest of this entry »

Designs that put us to sleep, literally, are an important application area for cognitive designers. Sleeping well is essential for brain health and peak cognitive performance.  Not sleep well impacts mood, relationships and work performance. Lack of sleep creates brain fog.

The problem (or opportunity) is huge.  According the National Sleep Foundation’s 2011 sleep in America Poll, 63% of American’s say their sleep needs are not being met.  Seems like we have developed a wide range of behaviors that inhibit sleep or degrade its quality. From using light emitting screens after dusk, to eating big meals, not sticking to a sleep schedule and too little physical activity all contribute to poor sleep. Sleeping well is a major behavior change challenge.

We have designed our lives to go at full speed.

The National Sleep Foundation is an excellent resource on the causes of cures for our sleep troubles. What we need are designs that entice us to make the necessary behavior changes.

For example, imagine a simple smart phone app that prompts us with a daily nudge (or knowledge card) suggesting a small but important sleep-friendly behavior.

Works of art have a unique and powerful cognitive impact.  Ideally, we could reverse engineer them, figure out what key features make them tick and then use the key features to artify other objects.   Of course people have been trying to figure out what makes a work of art a work-of-art for a long time.  Most attempts have come from philosophers, artists or critical theorists. Now neuroscientists are getting into the act. Some of the work could be useful for designers.

Take for example the early work (1999), The Science of Art: A Neurological Theory of the Aesthetic Experience. The authors offer 8 key features that we find pleasing in works of art including the peak shift effect, isolation, grouping, contrast, symmetry, generic viewpoint, perceptual problem solving and art as metaphor. For a quick overview watch the 10-minute video on the 8 Laws of Artistic Experience.  After watching the video you will notice that at least 50% of the features work because they engage our brains in the active construction of the perceived object (e.g. grouping, perceptual problem solving, metaphor) in a way that results in reward rather than frustration or boredom.

There are many (and more recent) studies in the burgeoning field of neuroaesthetics. Very interested to hear from readers about other studies especially ones with implications for how to art up the design of other artifacts.

Brainstorming is the most commonly used technique for attempting to generate new ideas. Unfortunately, it often fails to produce interesting results. It rests on dated science about how our brains really work. It is played out. That is one of the conclusions argued in the must-read article, How Aha! Really Happens, on the Strategy + Business website.

The authors suggest we replace dated thinking about left brain versus right brain and instead formulate our approach to creativity on the theory of intelligent memory. Intelligent memory is one model of dynamic memory proposed by cognitive neuroscientists over the last 20 years.  In the new view, memory is dynamic and constructed rather than static and retrieved. Intelligent memory includes content or what the memory is about, links and connections between content and mental processes that mix and match the links and content.  It is our native ability to dynamically construct memories that is the seat of creativity.

To be creative we need to intelligently remember by finding relevant patterns and mixing, matching, deleting, adding or otherwise combining the various components in novel ways. We can incubate, generate and test various permutations until something sticks.

Although not mentioned in the article, The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) and various simplifications such as Systematic Innovation Thinking (SIT) work on this principle. TRIZ was developed by studying the variations and patterns of features and functions in some 200,000 patents that described various innovations. TRIZ is complex and difficult to use but produces amazing results.

Patents are one public way we document innovations.  The lessons of history, legal precedent, business case studies, best practices databases and many other repositories exist.  Opportunities for patternstorming –  or generating new ideas by systematically modifying patterns of what has proven useful in the past- are strong.

One example, covered in the article comes from GE:

“Here’s how it works. At the top of the matrix, write down your current understanding of the situation (always as a provisional draft, because your understanding might change). Then comes analysis: List in rows what actions you think you might need to take to succeed in the situation (these too are in draft form, because they also might change). Then ask the most important question you can ever ask to solve any problem of any kind: Has anyone else in the world ever made progress on any piece of this puzzle? List sources to search for an answer to this question, across the top, as columns (in draft again). The team then starts a treasure hunt. They search the sources for elements that might apply to the list of actions, trying to find a good combination.”

I am not sure how widely used this method is but I have seen several variations of it in practice. It does work.

Very interested to hear from readers that use of patternstorming techniques.

In cognitive design we look for ways to put people in specific mental states. Do Nothing For Two Minutes is a seeming simple example that has likely worked over 400,000 times! Give it a try and then make additional suggestions.

How did you do nothing for two minutes?

Check out The Strange Powers of the Placebo Effect. It is a well produced 3-minute video recap on the research about placebos, suggesting that size, color, cost, branding, tech-intensity and geographical location all matter when it comes to effectiveness. Placebos can improve sports performance, prevent death, relieve pain, help depression, become addictive and just make use feel better or worse.

Placebos are chemically and therapeutically inactive. They work by shifting our beliefs, reshaping our expectations, reframing our thinking and changing our behavior. They play off of our deepest mental models about authority and science and the need to do something rather than nothing.  They combine hope and fear in a one two punch and reduce complexity down to simple acts. Great cognitive design.

The amazing thing is that they produce life altering and reproducible outcomes. Sometimes they even work when someone knows they are taking a placebo!

The design question is how can we ethically harness these effects to produce positive outcomes in organizational and behavior change programs?  Said another way, how much of successful organizational behavior change is due to placebo effects rather than leadership with therapeutic impact? 

Sometimes the core of a cognitive design challenge rests on being able to detect deception. People lie, fake emotions, bluff, fib, tell partial truths and otherwise deceive in a wide variety of circumstances.   Being able to detect such deceptions reliably can be important at the office as well as at home.  If nothing else it builds up your emotional intelligence.  So I am always on the look out for scientific studies that zero in on the behavioral tells and give-away cognitive states of deception.

For example, two Canadian universities report on research in Law and Human Behavior that reveals for the first time insights into the behavioral cues for false remorse.

Those that fake remorse, or feeling sorry for what they have done, seem to:

 1. exhibit a greater range of emotional states over a given period of time than those that are sorry

2. transition directly from negative emotions to positive emotions bypassing the neural emotional states that normally come between if you are truly sorry

3. have relatively higher rate of speech interruptions

These are clear tells that we can learn to detect. Not surprising given the journal’s focus, most of the applications mentioned focus on law enforcement including forensic psychologist or judges attempting to determine remorse during sentencing.  It is easy to imagine other applications, for example a manager or HR professionals involved in the employee disciplinary process.

Interested to hear from readers about how they detect remorse or other forms of deception. How can disception detection be used in products, services or workplace improvements?