Using fMRI to deepen our understanding of design fixation

Abstract

Design fixation refers to blind adherence to a set of ideas, which can limit the output of conceptual design. Engineering designers tend to fixate on features of pre-existing solutions and consequently generate designs with similar features. The objective of this study is to leverage functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the brain activity of engineering designers during conceptual design in order to understand whether/where design fixation can be detected in a person’s brain when solving design problems. Design solutions indicated that fixation effects were detectable at a statistically significant level. fMRI results show increased activation in areas associated with visuospatial processing when comparing ideation activities using an Example solution to No Example solution. Activation was found in the right inferior temporal gyrus, left middle occipital gyrus, and right superior parietal lobule regions. The left lingual and superior frontal gyri were found to be less active in the example condition; these gyri are close in proximity to the prefrontal cortex, associated with creative output. The spatial patterns of activation provide evidence that a shift in mental resources can occur when a designer becomes fixated. For designers, the timing of ideation relative to the timing of benchmarking existing solutions should be considered.

The cognitive experience of engineering design: an examination of first-year student stress across principal activities of the engineering design process

“…Another possible contributor to student stress during concept generation could be design fixation. Design fixation is when designers focus on one aspect of a design or design problem, which prevents them from producing more innovative solutions (Fu, Sylcott & Das 2019). It is theorized that design fixation could reduce a designer's mental capacity to process information (Hertz 1992;Nguyen & Zeng 2017a).…”

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in design studies: Methodological considerations, challenges, and recommendations

“…Goucher-Lambert et al (2017) found that sustainable product decision making was associated with regions that are also activated in moral reasoning and judgment in other areas. , Fu et al (2019), andHay et al (2019a) all observed overlap between regional activation in design ideation tasks and more generic creative ideation tasks in the general population. There have not yet been extensive empirical comparisons using fMRI, although Alexiou et al (2009) did observe differences in frontal activation during open-ended 'design' problem solving and more constrained problem solving found in other contexts.…”

“…As shown, constructs are defined at different levels of granularity -e.g. designing (Alexiou et al, 2009), which involves ideation, which involves a range of lower-level processes such as memory retrieval and imagery (Hay et al, 2019a) as well as higher-level constructs such as analogical reasoning and fixation (Fu et al, 2019). Design ideation: the generation of novel ideas to address a design problem, involving memory retrieval, generative processing, higher-order evaluation and modification, and visual imagery processing.…”

Work in Progress: Using Neuro-responses to Understand Creativity, the Engineering Design Process, and Concept Generation

“…The study in [59] used fMRI to investigate brain activity of engineering designers during conceptual generation in order to see if design fixation (defined as adherence to a set of ideas or concepts that limit the final output of a design) could be detected when participants were solving design problems. Some participants were given example images (sketches) and others were not.…”