Conceptual design is a series of complex cognitive processing tasks and research seeking to further understand design cognition will benefit by considering literature from the field of psychology. This thesis presents two research projects, which sought to understand and mitigate design biases in conceptual design through the application of theories from biological and cognitive psychology. The first of these puts forward a novel model of design creativity based on connectionist theory and a neurological phenomenon known as long-term potentiation. This model is applied to provide new insights into design fixation and develop interventions to assist designers overcome fixation. The second project seeks to establish that cognitive heuristics and biases predictably influence design cognition. Two studies are discussed that examined the role of confirmation bias in design. The first establishes that confirmation bias is present during concept generation; the second demonstrates that decision matrices can mitigate confirmation bias in concept evaluation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/33234 |
| Date | 20 November 2012 |
| Creators | Hallihan, Gregory M. |
| Contributors | Shu, Lily H. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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