In a purchase situation, customer satisfaction and loyalty are primarily determined by usability, trust, and web design. However, the nature of their relationship remains unclear. According to the literature, trust can generate customer loyalty. Consumers’ cognitive and affective processes in online shopping are well discussed in the literature. However, the role of trust in website design has yet to be thoroughly investigated. Given the above knowledge gaps, we studied 96 Chinese youths using two shopping websites. Structural equation modeling was considered to validate the hypothesized relationships, focusing on three key website design features. We discovered that the three design elements predicted usability and satisfaction differently. In addition, website usability and customer satisfaction mediated the relationship between navigation/information design and loyalty, and satisfaction mediated the relationship between visual design and loyalty. Furthermore, the effects of website design and usability on customer satisfaction are strengthened or weakened depending on customer trust. When trust is high, the effect of website design on satisfaction is strengthened, while the effect of usability on satisfaction is weakened. To retain customers, designers should pay more attention to website design and establish trust. These findings offer crucial insights for online retailers in promoting and capitalizing on the positive effects of various website design elements on customers’ shopping experiences.

Brain regions associated with creativity is a focal point in research related to the field of cognitive neuroscience. Previous studies have paid more attention to the role of activation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in creativity tasks, which are mostly abstract conceptual tasks, and less attention to real-world creativity tasks. The right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in functions such as visuospatial processing, which may have a positive impact on innovative solutions to real-world problems. In this study, tDCS technology was used to explore the effect of anodal stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on design creativity performance in a real-word problem-solving task related to product design. The experimental task comprised three stages, of which the first two were idea generation stages based on divergent thinking using text and graphics, respectively, whereas the third was the creative evaluation stage based on convergent thinking. Thirty-six design students were recruited to partake in the experiment. They were randomly assigned into anodal stimulation and sham stimulation groups. The results showed that anodal stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex produced a significant positive effect during the creative evaluation stage, promoting the usefulness of ideas (p = 0.009); thus, improving product creativity scores. However, there was no significant impact on the idea generation stage (p > 0.05), which is dominated by divergent thinking. The results suggest that activating the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with tDCS can improve people’s performance in creative activities by promoting convergent thinking rather than divergent thinking. It also provides further evidence that the right hemisphere of the brain has an advantage in solving complex problems that require the participation of visuospatial information.

Bilingualism has been shown to be associated with creativity, but the mechanisms of this association are not very well understood. One possibility is that the skills that bilinguals use in switching back and forth between languages also promote the cognitive processes associated with creativity. We hypothesized that high-proficient Chinese-English bilinguals would show higher convergent and divergent thinking than low-proficient bilinguals, with the differences being mediated by cognitive inhibition and cognitive flexibility, respectively. Chinese university students (N = 54) were classified as high-proficient (n = 27) and low-proficient (n = 27) bilinguals based on their performance on the National English Test for College Students. As expected, group comparisons showed that the high-proficient group had higher scores on the Remote Associates Test (RAT, convergent thinking) and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT, divergent thinking). Also as expected, the association between bilingualism and convergent thinking was mediated by scores on a Stroop task (cognitive inhibition), and the association between bilingualism and divergent thinking was mediated by scores on a More-odd shifting task (cognitive flexibility). These findings suggest that bilingual learning can promote the development of different components of creativity through stronger cognitive inhibition and cognitive flexibility. The results provide empirical evidence for the relationship and mechanism between bilingual learning and creativity.

No abstract