The neural correlates of ideation in product design engineering practitioners

Abstract

In product design engineering (PDE), ideation involves the generation of technical behaviours and physical structures to address specific functional requirements. This differs from generic creative ideation tasks, which emphasise functional and technical considerations less. To advance knowledge about the neural basis of PDE ideation, we present the first fMRI study on professional product design engineers practising in industry. We aimed to explore brain activation during ideation, and compare activation in open-ended and constrained tasks. Imagery manipulation tasks were contrasted with ideation tasks in a sample of 29 PDE professionals. The key findings were: (1) PDE ideation is associated with greater activity in left cingulate gyrus; (2) there were no significant differences between open-ended and constrained tasks; and (3) a preliminary association with activity in the right superior temporal gyrus was also observed. The results are consistent with existing fMRI work on generic creative ideation, suggesting that PDE ideation may share a number of similarities at the neural level. Future work includes: functional connectivity analysis of open-ended and constrained ideation to further investigate potential differences; investigating the effects of aspects of design expertise/training on processing; and the use of novelty measures directly linked to the designer’s internal processing in fMRI analysis.

Cognitive differences among first-year and senior engineering students when generating design solutions with and without additional dimensions of sustainability

“…Literature about the right dlPFC is also known to contribute to exploration (i.e., without rules) and improvization; for example, electric stimulus to the right dlPFC increases performance among novice jazz musicians (Rosen et al 2016). The right dlPFC is known to be a critical area for creative design tasks (Hay et al 2019). Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) is associated with self-reflection (left vlPFC) and uncertainty processing (right vlPFC) (Levy & Wagner 2011;Herwig et al 2012).…”

Concept generation techniques change patterns of brain activation during engineering design

“…Data collection with an fMRI machine requires participants to remain still and lay down while partially enclosed inside the fMRI scanner and this can be constraining. While studying design with fMRI, a solution is for participants to verbalize their design solutions and subsequently sketch them once out of the fMRI scanner (Hay et al 2019).…”

How to Guard Against Fixation? Demonstrating Individual Vulnerability is More Effective Than Warning of General Risk

“…Many studies of creative fixations use tasks that take an hour or more, where there is no right or wrong answer and where numerous objectives might be in conflict with each other (for an analysis, see Vasconcelos & Crilly, 2016). However, it has not been demonstrated whether the ways in which we might improve performance on those tasks is different from the ways in which we might improve performance on other tasks that permit more objective measures and therefore more reliable claims that fixation was indeed present (for an evidence that solving closed simple problems relies on similar cognitive processes to the solving of open complex ones, see Hay et al, 2019; but also see Jausovec, 1997). Here, we prioritized experimental control over task complexity, but the validity of those more open-ended tasks conducted in laboratory conditions has not been demonstrated in any case (Crilly, 2019).…”