Towards a model of how designers mentally categorise design information

Towards addressing ontological issues in design cognition research, this paper presents the first generic classification of cognitive processes investigated in protocol studies on conceptual design cognition. The classification is based on a systematic review of 47 studies published over the past 30 years. Three viewpoints on the nature of design cognition are outlined (search, exploration and design activities), highlighting considerable differences in the concepts and terminology applied to describe cognition. To provide a more unified view of the cognitive processes fundamentally under study, we map specific descriptions of cognitive processes provided in protocol studies to more generic, established definitions in the cognitive psychology literature. This reveals a set of 6 categories of cognitive process that appear to be commonly studied and are therefore likely to be prevalent in conceptual design: (1) long-term memory; (2) semantic processing; (3) visual perception; (4) mental imagery processing; (5) creative output production and (6) executive functions. The categories and their constituent processes are formalised in the generic classification. The classification provides the basis for a generic, shared ontology of cognitive processes in design that is conceptually and terminologically consistent with the ontology of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In addition, the work highlights 6 key avenues for future empirical research: (1) the role of episodic and semantic memory; (2) consistent definitions of semantic processes; (3) the role of sketching from alternative theoretical perspectives on perception and mental imagery; (4) the role of working memory; (5) the meaning and nature of synthesis and (6) unidentified cognitive processes implicated in conceptual design elsewhere in the literature.

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“…Chiu 2003;Kim et al 2010;Daly et al 2012;Kim & Ryu 2014;. The transformation of internal representations (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

Towards a shared ontology: A generic classification of cognitive processes in conceptual design

et al. 2017

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“…The summed coverage data in each 10-min interval was visualized using the normalized coverage value (normalized A = (A − mean)/SD) [9,34] to facilitate the exploration of sequential patterns. Figure 2 shows the normalized coverage of geometric and algorithmic codes over time.…”

Section: Coding Results Of the Parametric Design Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The use of 'expert panel assessments' [28,29] based on CAT [9,16] is a valuable and often-used approach for measuring the creativity of design products. The CAT technique is based on the notion that a measure of the creativity of an artifact is the combined assessment of experts in that field.…”

Section: Expert Panel Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the design domain, process and cognition are core themes [6], and much of the related research has aimed to enhance design creativity. Researchers [5,[7][8][9] have studied designers' sketching activities in attempts to understand the creative process in the early conceptual design stages, revealing that sketching activities are linked in various ways to creativity. In other approaches, researchers have compared sketching activities with those used in the application of traditional CAD tools [4,10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating Creativity in Parametric Design Processes and Products: A Pilot Study

Lee¹,

Gu²,

Jupp

et al. 2014

Design Computing and Cognition '12

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Parametric design is an emerging research issue in the design domain. However, our current understanding of creativity in relation to either a process or product standpoint is limited. This paper presents a formal approach for the description and identification of creativity from both perspectives. The framework combines: (i) protocol analysis for encoding cognitive design activities, providing a process-based evaluation of creativity, and (ii) consensual assessment of parametric products, providing a product-based evaluation of creativity. The coding scheme is based on the creative acts: Representation, Perception, and Searching for a Solution. The consensual assessment technique is based on a series of creativity evaluations undertaken by an expert panel. The effectiveness of this approach was examined in a pilot study. Findings show the capture of cognitive activities and identification of creative patterns, revealing how they correspond to the creativity levels of parametric design products. The results identify conditions that have the potential to enhance creativity in parametric design. This research provides a promising procedure not yet available and contributes to the development and verification of a formal approach for evaluating creativity in parametric design.

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“…With respect to (ii), a number of authors in the sample were found to propose tentative relationships and cognitive models on the basis of protocol analysis findings e.g. [3,28,30,69,70]. However, a weakness associated with knowledge derived from protocol studies is that it is necessarily based on small samples of designers, and subjective inference from verbal and behavioural data.…”

Section: Key Observations and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic Review of Protocol Studies on Conceptual Design Cognition

Hay

McTeague

Duffy

et al. 2017

Design Computing and Cognition '16

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This paper reports the first systematic review and synthesis of protocol studies on conceptual design cognition. 47 studies from the domains of architectural design, engineering design, and product design engineering were reviewed towards answering the following question: What is our current understanding of the cognitive processes involved in conceptual design tasks carried out by individual designers? Studies were found to reflect three viewpoints on the cognitive nature of designing: design as search; design as exploration; and design activities. Synthesising the findings of individual studies revealed ten categories of executive and nonexecutive function studied across the viewpoints: visual perception; mental imagery; semantic association; long term memory; working memory; selective attention; creative thinking; evaluation and decision making; externalisation; and reasoning and problem solving. The review highlights several avenues for future research, centering on the need for general formalisms, more objective methods to supplement protocol analysis, and a shared ontology of cognitive processes.

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Towards a model of how designers mentally categorise design information

Abstract: is an open access repository that collects the work of Arts et Métiers ParisTech researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible.

Cited by 16 publications

References 27 publications

Towards a shared ontology: A generic classification of cognitive processes in conceptual design

Towards a shared ontology: A generic classification of cognitive processes in conceptual design

Evaluating Creativity in Parametric Design Processes and Products: A Pilot Study

A Systematic Review of Protocol Studies on Conceptual Design Cognition

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