In the flow

Immersion (or ‘flow’) is a mental state where someone is completely immersed in a feeling of energised focus and full involvement, and has been described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his classic book Flow.  Other terms for this state include ‘in the moment’, ‘present’, ‘in the zone’, ‘wired in’ and ‘in the groove’. Read more »

Familiarity breeds liking

When we have neutral feelings about something, repeated exposure to whatever it is has the effect of increasing its likeability and acceptability, an effect known as exposure effect (or alternatively mere exposure effect or repetition effect).  This is an effect which is commonly used in advertising and marketing, especially to build initial positive affect for a new brand.  Other examples include the popularity of jingles, as the more a song or slogan is repeated. the more popular it becomes. Read more »

From two dimensions to three

Although our eyes collect visual information on a two dimensional surface, our brains do a remarkable job of recreating the world in the ‘surround vision’ of three dimensions.  We all have an in-built tendency to see objects and patterns as three-dimensional, especially when certain visual cues are present, and these mental models are the basis of many common visual illusions too. Read more »

We think in maps

We all understand and interact with the world based on mental maps which are built from our experiences.  We learn by comparing the outcomes of our mental models with feedback from the outside world, and the better our predictions become then the more accurate and complete our models are (or seem to be).  In design, there are two types of mental model, those which focus on how systems work (systems models) and those which focus on how people interact with systems (interaction models). Read more »

Dan Pink’s post on solving problems by sharing them intrigued and inspired me.  He reports recent research which shows that we are quicker and better at solving problems when we are solving them for other people than when we solve them for ourselves, and we get better and better the ‘further’ away we are from the person.  Put another way, the more we are able to distance ourselves from a problem, the more abstract and creative our problem solving is. It can really help your perspective to trade places with someone else (as Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy discovered). Read more »

Feels like home

Humans have an automatic preference for savanna-like environments, over other natural environments that are simple or complex.  Thus, we prefer open areas, scattered trees, water and uniform grassiness over deserts, jungle and mountains.  The preference is believed to date back to our early ancestors who lived in such environments with a survival advantage over their contemporaries who lived in other environments, leading to a genetic disposition to favour such landscapes.  This preference continues to manifest itself in the resemblance of many parks, resorts and golf courses to the savanna, our ancestral home in East Africa. Read more »

The importance of ‘why?’

Jean Piaget described children as “little scientists”, seeing them as active thinkers developing knowledge through constant theorising and experimentation in the world.  In her book The Philosophical Baby, Alison Gopnik expands this idea based on latest research arguing powerfully that one of the reasons for human success is the extended period of immaturity that has been allowed through the development of social groups, which allows us to be ‘smarter’ when we finally grow up by also extending our time for learning (and theorising). The book reminded me very much of my earliest encounters with psychology applying the theories of George Kelly (who described man as a scientist too). Read more »