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BRAIN ACTIVITY OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS IN CONSTRAINED AND OPEN DESIGN: THE EFFECT OF GENDER ON FREQUENCY BANDS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Sonia Liliana da Silva Vieira ,
Mathias Benedek ,
John S. Gero ,
Gaetano Cascini  and
Shumin Li
Sonia Liliana da Silva Vieira*
Affiliation:
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Mathias Benedek
Affiliation:
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria
John S. Gero
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, NC, United States
Gaetano Cascini
Affiliation:
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Shumin Li
Affiliation:
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
*
Vieira, Sonia Liliana da Silva, University of Porto, INEGI, Portugal, vieirasonia88@gmail.com

Abstract

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In this paper, we present results from an experiment using EEG to measure brain activity and explore EEG frequency power associated with gender differences of professional industrial designers while performing two prototypical stages of constrained and open design tasks, problem-solving and design sketching. Results indicate no main effect of gender. However, among other main effects, a consistent main effect of hemisphere for the six frequency bands under analysis was found. In the problem-solving stage, male designers show higher alpha and beta bands in channels of the prefrontal cortices and female designers in the right occipitotemporal cortex and secondary visual cortices. In the design sketching stage, male designers show higher alpha and beta bands in the right prefrontal cortex, and female designers in the right temporal cortex and left prefrontal cortex, where higher theta is also found. Prioritising different cognitive functions seem to play a role in each gender's approach to constrained and open design tasks. Results can be useful to design professionals, students and design educators, and for the development of methodological approaches in design research and education.

Keywords

Human behaviour in designDesign cognitionIndustrial designGenderfrequency bands
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 1: ICED21 , August 2021 , pp. 571 - 580
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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