Cognitive Design Science

Agenda

Understanding the cognitive and neural processing of designers is fundamental to numerous areas of design research, including decision making, problem-solving, sketching, creativity, education, and practice. Design researchers have been investigating cognition for over 60 years, primarily using the method of protocol analysis [1]. Recent years have seen calls for greater methodological diversity, ontological integration, and theoretical robustness, through consideration of and alignment with scientific practice in cognitive psychology [2–4]. Furthermore, the field is now evolving to incorporate approaches and measures from cognitive neuroscience, to understand neural activity and link this to cognitive processing (design neurocognition [5–7]). Simultaneously, there has been a growing interest in creativity and creative practice amongst cognitive scientists over the past five decades [8,9]. This brings increased potential for collaboration between design researchers and cognitive scientists, enabling, for instance, the former to capitalise on specialised scientific expertise and the latter to access and learn about design professionals and practice.

As reflected in two ongoing thematic collections on design cognition and neurocognition in Design Science Journal [10,11], this area is in a state of flux and evolution: more scientifically robust approaches are being developed, incorporating new methods, techniques, and measures from psychology and neuroscience, and researchers are seeking stronger collaboration with the cognitive science community. These changes open up a multitude of new research questions and opportunities, particularly around the neural basis of design activities. Furthermore, recent technological advances in areas such as artificial intelligence, sensing technology, and brain-computer interfaces open up exciting new possibilities for how design research might be able to impact design practice in the future – for instance, through the development of brain-controlled design tools and real-time neurophysiological feedback [12]. However, these opportunities come with associated interdisciplinary challenges, and researchers must expand their skillsets to account for new research techniques and approaches as well as their collaborative networks.

Focus

A diverse range of teams and individuals share interests in cognitive and neuroscientific research on design globally. These include design researchers, as well as cognitive scientists studying design- related topics (e.g. creativity, aesthetics, and user perception), and span all career stages from PhD to post-doc and through to academic. Although this community does come together bi-annually at the International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition, it is currently lacking coordinated
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mechanisms to support ongoing interdisciplinary networking and collaboration, joint discussions on research questions and direction, the exchange of ideas and expertise, and professional development.

To address this, we propose a SIG to bring together researchers interested in cognition and neuroscience in design under the umbrella of ‘cognitive design science’ (CDS): the scientific study of the designing mind and brain. The SIG has four key goals over the period 2020 – 2024:

G1. To establish a forum for researchers in the CDS area that will support sustained discussion, networking, and collaboration as the field evolves.

G2. To develop, through this forum, a joint and continually evolving:
a. research framework for CDS, encompassing the diverse research areas, approaches, and practice-based applications of interest to researchers in the field; and
b. roadmap for CDS, encompassing the research questions, challenges, and impacts of relevance in the short, medium, and long term.

G3. To establish support for the training and development needs of CDS researchers.

To achieve these goals, the following major objectives are planned for completion in 2020 – 2024:

O1. Run meetings and networking activities (e.g. workshops, interactive webinars) bringing together design cognition/neurocognition researchers and cognitive scientists with interests in design-related phenomena (e.g. the neuroscience of creativity community [13]), to establish a network of SIG members and foster interaction and discussion.

O2. Run collaborative workshops involving researchers from all career stages to facilitate the co- creation of a broadly-encompassing research framework and roadmap for the CDS area.

O3. Through the above activities, identify the key development needs of researchers in the CDS area and curate a set of online resources to support these (particularly focusing on early career researchers, e.g. PhD students, post-docs, and early career academics).

Committee

• Chair: Dr Laura Hay, Lecturer (Asst. Professor) at University of Strathclyde, UK
 Lead guest editor of special issue on design cognition analysis at Design Science Journal, and guest editor of special issue on research quality at Design Studies.

 Editorial board member at the International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation.
 Member of: DCC Advisory Board 2016 to present; ICDC Scientific Committee 2018 to present; and DESIGN Scientific Advisory Board 2020.
 Co-chair of workshop on design cognition measurement at DCC 2018.
 Member of programme committee for workshop on advances in cognitive studies of designers at DCC 2016.
 Research interests and publications in design cognition [1], cognitive design ontology [2], neuroimaging in design [14–16], and metrics for cognitive design studies [17,18].

• Co-chair: Prof. Alex Duffy, Head of Department at University of Strathclyde, UK
– Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Engineering Design, Associate Editor of Design Science, Strategic Advisory Board member for the International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, and editorial board member at the journals of Research in Engineering Design and AI EDAM.
– Scientific committee member of over 120 international conferences/workshops.
– Co-chair of workshop on design cognition measurement at DCC 2018.
– Vice-Chair of DCC 2004 to present.
– Keynote speaker on ‘cognitive driven design’ DESIGN Conference 2018 [19].
– Research interests and publications in design cognition [1], design ontology [2,20], neuroimaging in design [14–16], artificial intelligence in design [21], and cognitive based design [12].

• Co-chair: Dr Philip Cash, Associate Professor at DTU, Denmark
– 2nd guest editor of special issue on design cognition analysis at Design Science Journal, and lead guest editor of special issue on research quality at Design Studies.
– Editorial board member at Design Studies
– Member of: DCC Advisory Board 2016 to present; ICED Scientific Committee 2016 to present; and DESIGN Scientific Advisory Board 2014.
– Co-chair of workshop on design cognition measurement at DCC 2018.
– Research interests and publications in design cognition [22–25], and design research methodology [3,26–28].

The co-chairs will be supported by an international steering committee, again all with relevant background and research interests. The steering committee will include representatives from both the design and cognitive science communities. The following academics have agreed to be steering committee members:

• Prof. Anna Abraham, Leeds Beckett University, UK – psychology and neuroscience of creativity (e.g. [9,29]).
• Prof. Jonathan Cagan, Carnegie Mellon University, USA – design cognition, design neurocognition, and artificial intelligence (see [30]).
• Prof. John Gero, UNC Charlotte, USA – design cognition, design neurocognition, and artificial intelligence (see [31]).

• Prof. Larry Leifer, Stanford University, USA – design thinking, neurodesign education programme (see [32]).
• Dr Kosa Goucher-Lambert, UC Berkeley, USA – design neurocognition, use of functional magnetic resonance imaging to study design (e.g. [5,10,33]).
• Dr Tripp Shealy, Virginia Tech, USA – design neurocognition, use of functional near infrared spectroscopy to study design (e.g. [6,10]).