Utilizing EEG to Explore the Mental States Involved in the Occurrence of Different Levels Design Fixation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Cao ◽  
Wu Zhao ◽  
Xin Guo ◽  
Tingting Wu
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Bias ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Mental Effort ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Mental Fatigue ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Design Fixation ◽  
Creative Idea ◽  
Comparison Results ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract Design fixation, which is a form of cognitive bias, is commonly reported to unconsciously occur when designers take the path of least resistance during the fulfillment of a design task. It’s thought to be easy and effortless. Nonetheless, the mental states such as mental effort and mental fatigue that accompany the occurrence of different levels of design fixation are still unknown. In the present study, an experiment using electroencephalography (EEG) was conducted to examine the mental effort and mental fatigue involved in the occurrence of different levels of design fixation during creative idea generation. Fluency, flexibility, the degree of copying, and the time spent generating ideas were used to evaluate the design performance and fixation level of each participant, and the task-related power changes of theta, alpha, and beta bands of participants with higher and lower levels of fixation during creative idea generation process were compared and analyzed separately. The comparison results revealed that participants with higher levels of design fixation made the less mental effort and showed higher levels of mental fatigue during the ideation process compared to those with lower levels of design fixation. These results provide additional evidence for the mental states involved in the occurrence of design fixation and could contribute to a deeper understanding of design fixation from the neuroscience perspective.

scholarly journals Utilizing EEG to Explore Design Fixation during Creative Idea Generation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Juan Cao ◽  
Wu Zhao ◽  
Xin Guo
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Lower Solution ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Design Fixation ◽  
Creative Idea ◽  
Neural Activities ◽  
Fixation Group ◽  
Comparison Results

Design fixation is related to the broad phenomenon of unconscious cognition bias that hinders the generation of creative solutions during the conceptual design process. While numerous research studies have gone into the study of design fixation, the experimental methods used were external to the cognitive process of designers; thus, there are some limitations. To address these limitations, the present study utilized electroencephalography (EEG) to explore the differences in neural activities between designers with different degrees of design fixation during creative idea generation. Fluency, flexibility, and the degree of copying were used to evaluate the design performance and fixation degrees of all participants; for the follow-up analyses on brain activity patterns, participants were then divided into the Higher Fixation Group and the Lower Fixation Group according to the evaluation of the degrees of copying. Next, participants in each group were contrasted separately against the task-related alpha power changes during creative idea generation. The comparison results revealed that participants with lower design fixation demonstrated stronger alpha synchronization in frontal, parietotemporal, and occipital regions during creative idea generation, while participants with higher design fixation showed stronger task-related alpha desynchronization in frontal, centroparietal, and parietotemporal regions. Such findings suggested that participants with higher fixation showed lower solution flexibility because of the inability to inhibit the solutions generated overrelying on intuition. These results could contribute to a deeper understanding of design fixation from the neuroscience perspective and provide essential theoretical supports for the subsequent defixation methods and tool development.

Physical Models and Design Thinking: A Study of Functionality, Novelty and Variety of Ideas

2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vimal K. Viswanathan ◽  
Julie S. Linsey
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Building Conditions ◽  
Design Fixation ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Variety Show

Engineering idea generation is a crucial part of new product development, and physical modeling is a widely used tool. Despite the physical models’ popularity in the idea generation process, little is known about their effects on design cognition. The existing literature provides contradicting guidelines about their use in the design process. Product design firms call for the frequent use of physical models, but some studies suggest that physical models induce design fixation. The psychological literature indicates that physical representations, by supporting designers’ mental models of physical phenomena, might lead to more feasible designs. The advantages and disadvantages of physical models as idea generation tools need to be clarified to help designers decide when and where to implement them. Based on prior studies and anecdotal evidence, two hypotheses are tested: (1) physical models supplement designer’s mental models and (2) physical models induce design fixation. Two between-subject idea generation experiments with novice designers are conducted to evaluate these hypotheses. In the first pilot experiment, the participants generate ideas in three conditions: sketching only, building, and building and testing. This study is followed by a second experiment, in which a new condition called constrained sketching is added. In each condition, participants use the representation implied by the name of the condition. The percentage of ideas satisfying all design requirements indicates the physical models’ effect on the designers’ mental models. Novelty and variety are used as metrics for design fixation. The percentage of functional ideas quantified shows significant variation across the sketching and building conditions, whereas novelty and variety show no differences. These results support the argument that physical models supplement novice designer’s mental models. No evidence of fixation is observed, which contradicts the results of the prior observational studies. Hypothesized reasons for the apparently contradictory results are also presented.

Representing analogies to influence fixation and creativity: A study comparing computer-aided design, photographs, and sketches

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olufunmilola Atilola ◽  
Julie Linsey
Keyword(s):  
Computer Aided Design ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Design Fixation ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Computer Aided ◽  
Aided Design ◽  
Effective Design

AbstractMany tools are being developed to assist designers in retrieving analogies. One critical question these designers face is how these analogues should be represented in order to minimize design fixation and maximize idea generation. To address this question, an experiment is presented that compares various representations' influence on creativity and design fixation. This experiment presents an effective example (analogue) as computer-aided design (CAD), sketch, or photograph representations. We found that all representations induced fixation, and the degree of fixation did not vary significantly. We also found that CAD representations encourage engineering designers to identify and copy the key effective features of the example. CAD and photo representations also produced a higher quality of design concepts. Results from this experiment offer insights into how these various representations may be used in examples during idea generation; CAD representations appear to offer the greatest advantages during the idea generation process. The results from this experiment also indicate that analogical databases of effective design examples should include CAD and photolike images of the analogue rather than sketches.

Experimental Investigation of Progressive Idea Generation Techniques in Engineering Design

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jami J. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Design Fixation ◽  
Work In Progress ◽  
Collaborative Sketching

Abstract Three idea generation methods for engineering design have been studied over a period of several years. They are Method 6-3-5, Collaborative Sketching (C-Sketch), and the Gallery Method. Common features of all three methods are that they are team based and ideas are generated and developed in progressive stages. Differences between them include the medium for recording and communication allowed between team members. Experiments have been conducted on the influence of these factors on the idea generation process and results. Data from idea generation methods from 3 sets of experiments has been collected and partially analyzed. Specific issues examined are (a) overcoming design fixation (b) sentential vs. diagrammatic recording of ideas (c) misinterpretation of idea description as a provocative stimulus (d) identification of creative exploratory processes during design sessions. Results of work in progress are presented based on over 200 hours of data from roughly 44 subjects over nearly 3 years.

“Don’t praise the day before the sunset”: Paremiology in the study of depressiveness

2021 ◽  
pp. 1354067X2110257
Author(s):  
Mariusz Wołońciej ◽  
Michał Wilczewski ◽  
Shulamith Kreitler
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Affective Disorders ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Important Research ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
Collective Experience ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Different Levels

Psychology and psychiatry are in a constant search for an adequate model of affective disorders. Psychology has classified depression as a mood disorder, but a growing literature links mental disorders with socioculturally relevant ways in which people experience and express distress. With this study, we link depression with proverbs as omnipresent narrative structures and mini-theories that help people interpret reality and categorize personal experience. Proverbs are omnipresent narrative structures that describe, explain, and prescribe human behavior. Hence, we offer a paremiological approach to better understand the minds of the depressed. Our tenet is that proverbs may also reflect people’s mental states and attitudes by conveying different levels of optimism versus pessimism. We evidence empirically that proverbs convey optimistic and pessimistic attitudes and, thus, have the capacity to capture peoples’ mental states. Moreover, we show that this capacity is limited for people with high depressiveness. Finally, we discuss how proverbial thinking links collective experience and wisdom imprinted in proverbs with an individual’s mental states, which has important research and practical implications.

Technology in the Idea Generation Process: Voices from the Agency

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Blakeman ◽  
Maureen Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Idea Generation ◽  
Digital Natives ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Advertising Agencies ◽  
Research Findings

Today's advertising students are digital natives who grew up embracing technology in all facets of their lives. This study reports the results of a survey of 39 advertising creatives and art directors as they described the role that technology plays in the conceptualization process at advertising agencies around the country. The findings suggest that idea generation is still developed with pen and paper, but that computers are best suited for the final designs, as the ideation process moves to production. The research findings suggest ways forward in advertising pedagogy, especially curricula in the design sequences, as advertising educators teach the next generation of creatives.

scholarly journals The effect of ego depletion or mental fatigue on subsequent physical endurance performance: a meta-analysis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis-Solal Giboin ◽  
Wanja Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Endurance Performance ◽  
Mental Effort ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Mental Fatigue ◽  
Physical Endurance ◽  
Subsequent Performance ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Performance Impairment ◽  
Mental Exertion

Two independent lines of research propose that exertion of mental effort can impair subsequent performance due to ego depletion or mental fatigue. In this meta-analysis, we unite these research fields to facilitate a greater exchange between the two, to summarize the extant literature and to highlight open questions. We performed a meta-analysis to quantify the effect of ego-depletion and mental fatigue on subsequent physical endurance performance (42 independent effect sizes). We found that ego-depletion or mental fatigue leads to a reduction in subsequent physical endurance performance (ES = -0.506 [95% CI: -0.649, -0.369]) and that the duration of prior mental effort exertion did not predict the magnitude of subsequent performance impairment (r = -0.043). Further, analyses revealed that effects of prior mental exertion are more pronounced in subsequent tasks that use isolation tasks (e.g., handgrip; ES = -0.719 [-0.946, -0.493]) compared to whole-body endurance tasks (e.g. cycling; coefficient = 0.338 [0.057, 0.621]) and that the observed reduction in performance is higher when the person-situation fit is low (ES for high person-situation fit = -0.355 [-0.529, -0.181], coefficient for low person-situation fit = -0.336 [-0.599, -0.073]). Taken together, the aggregate of the published literature on ego depletion or mental fatigue indicates that prior mental exertion is detrimental to subsequent physical endurance performance. However, this analysis also highlights several open questions regarding the effects’ mechanisms and moderators. Particularly, the surprising finding that the duration of prior mental exertion seems to be unrelated to subsequent performance impairment needs to be addressed systematically.

scholarly journals Combining knowledge to generate novelty: a study of disclosed ideas for life science inventions

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taran Thune ◽  
Magnus Gulbrandsen
Keyword(s):  
Life Science ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
New Product ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Cross Domain ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
New Ideas

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a combination of diverse sources of knowledge is important for generation of new ideas and address how institutional infrastructures and practices support integration of knowledge across organizations in medicine and life sciences. Design/methodology/approach The paper investigates new product ideas that emerge from hospital and university employees, and looks at the extent of interaction between clinical and scientific environments in the idea generation process. The paper utilizes data about all new product ideas within life science that were reported in South-Eastern Norway in 2009-2011, as well as information about the individuals and teams that had been involved in disclosing these ideas. Interviews with inventors have also been carried out. Findings Interaction and integration across scientific and clinical domains are common and important for generating new product ideas. More than half of the disclosed life science ideas in the database come from groups representing multiple institutions with both scientific and clinical units or from individuals with multiple institutional affiliations. The interviews indicate that the infrastructure for cross-domain interaction is well-developed, particularly for research activities, which has a positive effect on invention. Originality/value The paper uses an original data set of invention disclosures and investigates the hospital-science interface, which is a novel setting for studies of inventive activities.

Performance Assessment of the Lead User Idea-Generation Process for New Product Development

2002 ◽  
Vol 48 (8) ◽  
pp. 1042-1059 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary L. Lilien ◽  
Pamela D. Morrison ◽  
Kathleen Searls ◽  
Mary Sonnack ◽  
Eric von Hippel
Keyword(s):  
New Product Development ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
New Product ◽  
Major Product ◽  
Product Line ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Target Market ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
Lead User

Traditional idea generation techniques based on customer input usually collect information on new product needs from a random or typical set of customers. The “lead user process” takes a different approach. It collects information about both needs and solutions from users at the leading edges of the target market, as well as from users in other markets that face similar problems in a more extreme form. This paper reports on a natural experiment conducted within the 3M Company on the effect of the lead user (LU) idea-generation process relative to more traditional methods. 3M is known for its innovation capabilities— and we find that the LU process appears to improve upon those capabilities. Annual sales of LU product ideas generated by the average LU project at 3M are conservatively projected to be $146 million after five years—more than eight times higher than forecast sales for the average contemporaneously conducted “traditional” project. Each funded LU project is projected to create a new major product line for a 3M division. As a direct result, divisions funding LU project ideas are projecting their highest rate of major product line generation in the past 50 years.

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