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CHANGES IN COGNITION AND NEUROCOGNITION WHEN THINKING ALOUD DURING DESIGN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Tripp Shealy ,
John Gero ,
Paulo Ignacio  and
Inuk Song
Tripp Shealy*
Affiliation:
Virginia Tech;
John Gero
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Paulo Ignacio
Affiliation:
Virginia Tech;
Inuk Song
Affiliation:
Virginia Tech;
*
Shealy, Tripp, Virginia Tech, United States of America, tshealy@vt.edu

Abstract

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The think-aloud protocol provides researchers an insight into the designer's mental state, but little is understood about how thinking aloud influences design. The study presented in this paper sets out to measure the cognitive and neurocognitive changes in designers when thinking aloud. Engineering students (n=50) were randomly assigned to the think-aloud or control group. Students were outfitted with a functional near-infrared spectroscopy band. Students were asked to design a personal entertainment system. The think-aloud group spent significantly less time designing. Their design sketches included significantly fewer words. The think-aloud group also required significantly more resources in the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The left DLPFC is often recruited for language processing, and the right DLPFC is involved in visual representation and problem-solving. The faster depletion of neurocognitive resources may have contributed to less time designing. Thinking aloud influences design cognition and neurocognition, but these effects are only now becoming apparent. More research and the adoption of neuroscience techniques can help shed light on these differences.

Keywords

Design cognitionDesign methodsDesign processprotocol analysisfNIRS
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 3: ICED23 , July 2023 , pp. 867 - 876
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), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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