For the April feature, we’re diving into the big themes and questions motivating this year’s conference, such as:
What can we learn about the basic mechanisms of human creativity by studying design?
Are the goals and approaches used in design research aligned with those in our discipline?
How can we bring these areas of research closer together, to make the science of creativity more ecologically valid and to ground design research in the psychological sciences?
Below, SfNC President Evangelia G. Chrysikou explains her interest in the cognitive neuroscience of design and why we decided to make the interaction between design and creativity the theme of this year’s annual meeting. Be sure to also check out our suggested reading list of topical recently published work on design cognition!
Why Creativity & Design?
The term design conjures up many different associations—architecture, engineering, fashion, art. But the process of design can also apply to creating a college curriculum, a legal strategy, a board game, or a scientific conference schedule. Designing refers to the cognitive act of intentionally generating something new that can have an impact on the world in some unique and measurable way. Although professional designers exist across disciplines, design is a universal activity, performed in numerous situations by virtually everyone.
As an inherently generative practice, design encompasses many of the cognitive processes (e.g., memory, attention, cognitive control) that are central to creative thinking. But design is a complex, real-world activity rarely studied in cognitive neuroscience labs, despite its potential to revolutionize our approach to creativity research. Our desire to close this gap is why we’ve organized SfNC2024 around the theme of Creativity & Design.
The (neuro)science of creativity has a lot to gain from studying the design process—and cutting-edge neuroscience approaches to the study of the mind (e.g., functional neuroimaging, fNIRS, EEG) can now be used in conjunction with behavioral methods to capture how design unfolds in space and time. The kind of dynamic cognitive act that designing represents is a cornerstone of human creativity that can be enhanced or impeded by many factors (e.g., design fixation). Thus, leveraging methodological advances and theoretical perspectives from cognitive neuroscience in the study of design holds strong potential for advancing a comprehensive understanding of creative thinking at multiple levels of analysis.
This year's conference theme aims to unite global, interdisciplinary scientific communities interested in creativity research and its societal impact. While design science has evolved through cognitive and behavioral approaches, the role of creativity in design studies is often overlooked. Investigating the cognitive and neural bases of creative thinking within design contexts promises to enrich the study of design and its many social, clinical, and educational applications at a global scale.
Our fields have already recognized the gaps that exist between our disciplines and the promises of greater cross-talk. Collaborations are underway between cognitive neuroscientists, design scientists, and practitioners. At SfNC2024, our aim is to deepen the ties between the creativity and design fields and examine key theoretical and methodological challenges in studying creativity in and outside of the lab.
What can the neuroscience of creativity learn by studying the design process? How can the findings from the creativity laboratory advance design research and practice? Why is creativity central to both fields? We look forward to seeing you in Toronto (or virtually on Crowdcast) to discuss these and many more exciting questions next week!
Evangelia G. Chrysikou, Ph.D.
President, SfNC
Associate Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences - Drexel University
Suggested Reading on Creativity & Design
Want to indulge your curiosity on the neuroscience of design cognition ahead of SfNC2024? Here’s a selection of recent research articles that capture the current state of Creativity & Design research.
Evangelia Chrysikou & John Gero’s article: Using neuroscience techniques to understand and improve design cognition is a useful treatise on the value of design for the neuroscience of creativity and vice versa.
This recent article published in Creativity Research Journal provides a comparison of creativity metrics employed in psychology vs design research (spoiler alert: we *may* not be as aligned as we’d hope!)
See also this recent overview on the new field of Design Neurocognition, providing a survey of recent collaborations and efforts to unify design and cognitive research.