Seed Magazine
The February issue of Seed Magazine has five stories of interest to cognitive designers including articles on a statistical theory of mind, using neurofeedback to enhance cognition and the application of behavioral economics to formulating policies to fight poverty. On top of that there are stories on the relationship between design and science and the need to go beyond gut feeling for good decision making.
Unfortunately, you cannot access the material without paying (online or at the newsstand). I will blog on a little longer than usual so you can decide if the issue is worth buying.
The piece on the Prophetic Brain offers a unified theory of perception and action based on the idea that our brains are statistical prediction machines that literally use Bayes’ theorem to, for example, predict the causes of our perceptions. This reinforces many things we already make use of in cognitive design such as the importance of expectation in shaping perception. But it goes much deeper and describes the mathematical nature of the process involved (e.g. minimization of free energy and hierarchical computation). All technical stuff but worth understanding as it may hold a key to creating designs that are highly effective at supporting human pattern matching and making abilities. BTW there are several books out on the Bayesian approach to cognition. I am working through one now - The Probabilistic Mind: The Prospects for a Bayesian Cognition Science.
A second “Big Idea”, On the Expanding Mind, speculates that brain computer interfaces (BCI) will soon be good enough to let us use neurofeedback as a way to augment and enhance cognition. The author points out that current BCI technologies lets us achieve sensorimotor control by thought alone (e.g. moving a cursor on a screen) but what about enhancing cognition itself, say by improving memory or learning? With cognitive BCI what use to take years of training and study might take months or memory that would once falter in middle age might just continue to improve. Speculation of course but all because we can use technology to externalize mental states and profoundly change feedback signals in the learning process and ques used to encode memories. The article makes an argument as to why this might be closer at hand than many neuroscientists think. I am encouraged by the argument but still advocate taking a designers approach. Let’s use rapid prototyping to build something that works and then figure it out. This is very fertile ground for the cognitive designer especially as commercial level BCIs enter the marketplace.
The last article I will mention is titled Poor Decision Making or how behavioral economics can help in the fight against poverty. The basic argument is that the many biases we have in making decision, self control and other key cognitive functions are intensified under conditions of poverty. For policies to be effective again poverty they must not only provide resources and opportunities but also support for choosing wisely. Another application area where designing for how people “think and feel” (cognitive design) is a critical not cosmetic consideration.
