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TEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF BRAIN ACTIVATION DURING THREE CONCEPT GENERATION TECHNIQUES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Julie Milovanovic ,
Mo Hu ,
Tripp Shealy  and
John Gero
Julie Milovanovic*
Affiliation:
UMR AAU-CRENAU, Graduate School of Architecture of Nantes, Nantes, France
Mo Hu
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA
Tripp Shealy
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA
John Gero
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science and School of Architecture, University of North Carolina
*
Milovanovic, Julie, AAU-CRENAU, Graduate School of Architecture, France, julie.milovanovic@crenau.archi.fr

Abstract

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The research presented in this paper explores features of temporal design neurocognition by comparing regions of activation in the brain during concept generation. A total of 27 engineering graduate students used brainstorming, morphological analysis, and TRIZ to generate concepts to design problems. Students' brain activation in their prefrontal cortex (PFC) was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Temporal activations were compared between techniques. When using brainstorming and morphological analysis, highly activated regions are consistently situated in the medial and right part of the PFC over time. For both techniques, the temporal neuro-physiological patterns are similar. Cognitive functions associated to the medial and right part of the PFC suggest an association with divergent thinking and adaptative decision making. In contrast, highly activated regions over time when using TRIZ appear in the medial or the left part of the prefrontal cortex, usually associated with goal directed planning.

Keywords

Design cognitionDesign processDesign engineeringDesign neurocognitionNeuroimaging
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 1: ICED21 , August 2021 , pp. 2961 - 2970
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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