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Bo Christensen

Copenhagen Business School, CBS, Department of Marketing, Faculty Member

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Alejandra B Osorio

Wellesley College

Politecnico di Milano

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

DR. RAKESH KUMAR

University of Delhi

Università Degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale"

Adolfo Vasquez Rocca

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Università degli Studi di Palermo

Daniel Martin Feige

Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart

Hương Đỗ Thị Lan

Hanoi University of Business and Technology

Haris Tsavdaroglou

University of Amsterdam

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Papers by Bo Christensen

The Role and Impact of Mental Simulation in Design

by Bo Christensen and Christian Schunn

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2009

Although theories of mental simulations have used different formulations of the premises of 'thou... more Although theories of mental simulations have used different formulations of the premises of 'thought experiments', they can be fitted under a minimalist hypothesis stating that mental simulations are run under situations of uncertainty to turn that uncertainty into approximate answers. Three basic assumptions of mental simulations were tested by using naturalistic data from engineering design. Results from the design protocols showed (1) initial representations in mental simulation had higher than base-rate uncertainty, (2) uncertainty in mental simulations were lowered after simulation runs, (3) resulting representations had more approximations than base-rate or initial representations. Further, the reference to external representational systems (sketches and prototypes) was examined. It was found that prototypes had fewer technical/functional simulations compared to sketches or unsupported cognition. Although prototypes were associated with more approximation than unsupported cognition, the different external representation categories did not differ in information uncertainty. The results support the minimalist hypothesis of mental simulations.

Putting Blinkers on a Blind Man": Providing Cognitive Support for Creative Processes with Environmental Cues

Exploring Creativity: Introduction

A methodology for studying design cognition in the real world

Nordes, Feb 2, 2009

The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical desi... more The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical design cognition methodologies. Whereas typical design cognition methodology use protocol analysis (utilizing special 'think-aloud' instructions and/or artificial settings) or retrospective analyses, in vivo research attempts to study design thinking and reasoning 'live' or 'online' as it takes place in the real world. No special instructions are used since the method relies on natural dialogue taking place between designers. By recording verbalizations at product development meetings (or other suitable objects of study), transcribing, and coding the data, it is possible to test hypotheses about design cognition in the real-world. This promises to improve the ecological validity over typical design cognition studies. Problems with the methodology include labor-intensiveness leading to small samples (possible sampling errors). To deal with this problem, it is recommended to supplement in vivo research with traditional larger sample laboratory studies.

How do analogizing and mental simulation influence team dynamics in innovative product design?

Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 2015

The aim of the reported study was to gain further insight into how two cognitive strategiesanalog... more The aim of the reported study was to gain further insight into how two cognitive strategiesanalogical reasoning and mental simulation -influence team dynamics in innovative product design. A particular emphasis was placed on exploring the association between these two strategies and team cohesion and team collaboration. Analogies were coded for 'analogical distance' (i.e., within-domain or between-domain) and 'analogical purpose' (i.e., problem identification, function finding, solution generation and explanation). Results indicated that the presence of either analogizing or mental simulation was related to team cohesion and team collaboration, with mental simulation having an especially marked association with team collaboration. Within-domain analogizing was found to enhance team collaboration but did not influence team cohesion. Furthermore, all types of analogical purpose showed a similar association with team cohesion, whereas solution generation and function finding had a stronger association with team collaboration. We propose that analogizing and mental simulations are strategies that serve valuable functions in engendering enhanced cohesion and collaboration, which might be expected to lead to more effective design outcomes, although this remains an empirical question in need of further corroboration.

Use of Analogies by Novice and Experienced Design Engineers

Volume 4: 20th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology; Second International Conference on Micro- and Nanosystems, 2008

This paper describes a study to understand the use of analogies by design engineers with differen... more This paper describes a study to understand the use of analogies by design engineers with different levels of experience. Protocol analyses of twelve design engineers have been analysed to understand the functions and reasoning of the analogies. The protocols are real world data from the aerospace industry. The findings indicate a significant difference in both the functions and reasoning by novices and experienced designers. Novices were found to predominantly transfer information without explicit reference to design issues, whereas experienced designers tended to either solve or identify problems. Experienced designers were found to reason about the function of a component and to some degree the predicted behaviour of the component, whereas the novices seem to lack such reasoning processes.

Contributions of consumer-perceived creativity and beauty to willingness-to-pay for design products

International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, 2014

ABSTRACT Consumer perception of creativity in design products equivalent in function was measured... more ABSTRACT Consumer perception of creativity in design products equivalent in function was measured using global single-item ratings of creativity. The measure was found to have a high level of agreement between raters and have discriminant validity to another aesthetic construct, that of beauty. In two experiments using designer lamps and wrist watches as stimuli, the present study shows how creativity and beauty both positively influence consumer willingness-to-pay (WtP) for the designed product, but each explains different parts of the variance. The results show that it is essential to develop separate models of creativity and beauty evaluations in consumer psychology, in that they seem to be distinct factors, explaining different parts of the variance in their consequences on WtP.

Judgments of Size Depend on Amount of Information

PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000

Exploring Creativity

Idea screening in engineering design using employee-driven wisdom of the crowds

ABSTRACT The paper investigates the question of screening ideas in the &#39;fuzzy front end&a... more ABSTRACT The paper investigates the question of screening ideas in the &#39;fuzzy front end&#39; of engineering design, examining the validity of employee voting schemes and related biases. After an employee-driven innovation project at {Company Name removed for review}, 99 ideas were to be screened for further development. Based on the concept of &#39;wisdom of the crowds&#39;, all ideas were individually rated by a broad selection of employees, and their choices of ideas and idea categories compared to those of a small team of senior marketers. The study also tested for two biases: visual complexity and endowment effect/ownership of ideas. The study shows that the crowd wisdom of employees significantly correlates with the preferences of the marketing team: overall, in top 12 selected ideas and in choice of idea categories. This match increases when including only the ratings of the most experienced employees. The experienced employees also proved to be less affected by visual complexity in the ideas presented. The endowment effect was potent in that every employee proved to be more likely to select their own ideas over others, but this effect disappeared when aggregating across the crowd of employees.

Integrating laboratory paradigms and ethnographic field studies for advancing analyses of creative processes

Procedings of the Second Conference on Creativity and Innovation in Design - DESIRE '11, 2011

Abstract This symposium responds to calls for an integration of in-vivo and in-vitro methods when... more Abstract This symposium responds to calls for an integration of in-vivo and in-vitro methods when studying how people tackle complex, open-ended issues in the areas of creativity, design, and innovation. Bringing together expertise from multiple perspectives and methodological backgrounds we explore fruitful ways towards integrative approaches to analyzing creative processes and practices. The theme is addressed from theoretical and practical viewpoints.

Effects of meaning and symmetry on judgments of size

Frontiers in psychology, 2014

Research has shown that people judge words as having bigger font size than non-words. This findin... more Research has shown that people judge words as having bigger font size than non-words. This finding has been interpreted in terms of processing fluency, with higher fluency leading to judgments of bigger size. If so, symmetric numbers (e.g., 44) which can be processed more fluently are predicted to be judged as larger than asymmetric numbers (e.g., 43). However, recent research found that symmetric numbers were judged to be smaller than asymmetric numbers. This finding suggests that the mechanisms underlying size judgments may differ in meaningful and meaningless materials. Supporting this notion, we showed in Experiment 1 that meaning increased judged size, whereas symmetry decreased judged size. In the next two experiments, we excluded several alternative explanations for the differences in size judgments between meaningful and meaningless materials in earlier studies. This finding contradicts the notion that the mechanism underlying judgments of size is processing fluency.

The relationship of analogical distance to analogical function and preinventive structure: the case of engineering design

Memory & Cognition, 2007

Analogy was studied in real-world engineering design, using the in vivo method. Analogizing was f... more

An In Situ Study of Analogical Reasoning in Novice and Experienced Design Engineers

Journal of Mechanical Design, 2009

This paper describes a study to understand the use of analogies by design engineers with differen... more This paper describes a study to understand the use of analogies by design engineers with different levels of experience in a variant design domain. Protocol analyses of twelve design engineers have been analysed to understand the functions and reasoning of the analogies. The protocols are real world data from the aerospace industry. The findings indicate a significant difference in both the use of analogies by novices and experienced designers and the reasoning from analogies. Novices were found to predominantly transfer information related to the form without explicit reference to design issues, whereas experienced designers tended to use analogies for problem solving and problem identification. Experienced designers were found to use the analogy to reason about the function of a component and the predicted behaviour of the component, whereas the novices seem to lack such reasoning processes.

Distributed idea screening in stage–gate development processes

Journal of Engineering Design, 2012

This paper investigates the gate screening of ideas in engineering design, by examination of the ... more This paper investigates the gate screening of ideas in engineering design, by examination of the validity of employee voting schemes and biases associated with such voting. After conducting an employee-driven innovation project at a major producer of disposable medical equipment, 99 ideas had to be screened for further development. Inspired by the concept of ‘wisdom of the crowd’, all ideas

A methodology for studying design cognition in the real-world

Proceedings from the First Nordic Design Research …, 2005

The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical desi... more The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical design cognition methodologies. Whereas typical design cognition methodology use protocol analysis (utilizing special 'think-aloud' instructions and/or artificial settings) or retrospective analyses, in vivo research attempts to study design thinking and reasoning 'live' or 'online' as it takes place in the real world. No special instructions are used since the method relies on natural dialogue taking place between designers. By recording verbalizations at product development meetings (or other suitable objects of study), transcribing, and coding the data, it is possible to test hypotheses about design cognition in the real-world. This promises to improve the ecological validity over typical design cognition studies. Problems with the methodology include labor-intensiveness leading to small samples (possible sampling errors). To deal with this problem, it is recommended to supplement in vivo research with traditional larger sample laboratory studies.

Creative cognition: analogy and incubation

CREATIVE COGNITION: ANALOGY AND INCUBATION Bo T. Christensen Department of Psychology, University... more

Design requirements, epistemic uncertainty and solution development strategies in software design

Design Studies, 2010

We pursued an information-processing analysis of the workshop design transcripts to examine the w... more

Analogical reasoning and mental simulation in design: two strategies linked to uncertainty resolution

Design Studies, 2009

Collaborative problem–solution co-evolution in creative design

by Stefan Wiltschnig, Bo Christensen, and Linden J Ball

Volume 34, Issue 5, September 2013, Pages 515–542, 2013

Creative design concepts are often viewed as developing iteratively, with the design problem and ... more Creative design concepts are often viewed as developing iteratively, with the design problem and solutions ‘co-evolving’ in a mutually adaptive manner. We report a study examining whether the co-evolution concept captures the creativity arising in collaborative, team-based design practice. The analysis revealed that co-evolution episodes occurred regularly and embodied various directional transitions between problem and solution spaces. Moreover, the team leader often initiated this co-evolution. Co-evolution episodes linked with other creative activities such as analogising and mental simulation and there was a clear association between co-evolution and expressions of epistemic uncertainty, suggesting that designers were dealing with considerable complexity and ambiguity. Our findings support the view that co-evolution is the ‘engine’ of creativity in collaborative design.

The Role and Impact of Mental Simulation in Design

by Bo Christensen and Christian Schunn

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2009

Although theories of mental simulations have used different formulations of the premises of 'thou... more Although theories of mental simulations have used different formulations of the premises of 'thought experiments', they can be fitted under a minimalist hypothesis stating that mental simulations are run under situations of uncertainty to turn that uncertainty into approximate answers. Three basic assumptions of mental simulations were tested by using naturalistic data from engineering design. Results from the design protocols showed (1) initial representations in mental simulation had higher than base-rate uncertainty, (2) uncertainty in mental simulations were lowered after simulation runs, (3) resulting representations had more approximations than base-rate or initial representations. Further, the reference to external representational systems (sketches and prototypes) was examined. It was found that prototypes had fewer technical/functional simulations compared to sketches or unsupported cognition. Although prototypes were associated with more approximation than unsupported cognition, the different external representation categories did not differ in information uncertainty. The results support the minimalist hypothesis of mental simulations.

Putting Blinkers on a Blind Man": Providing Cognitive Support for Creative Processes with Environmental Cues

Exploring Creativity: Introduction

A methodology for studying design cognition in the real world

Nordes, Feb 2, 2009

The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical desi... more The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical design cognition methodologies. Whereas typical design cognition methodology use protocol analysis (utilizing special 'think-aloud' instructions and/or artificial settings) or retrospective analyses, in vivo research attempts to study design thinking and reasoning 'live' or 'online' as it takes place in the real world. No special instructions are used since the method relies on natural dialogue taking place between designers. By recording verbalizations at product development meetings (or other suitable objects of study), transcribing, and coding the data, it is possible to test hypotheses about design cognition in the real-world. This promises to improve the ecological validity over typical design cognition studies. Problems with the methodology include labor-intensiveness leading to small samples (possible sampling errors). To deal with this problem, it is recommended to supplement in vivo research with traditional larger sample laboratory studies.

How do analogizing and mental simulation influence team dynamics in innovative product design?

Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 2015

The aim of the reported study was to gain further insight into how two cognitive strategiesanalog... more The aim of the reported study was to gain further insight into how two cognitive strategiesanalogical reasoning and mental simulation -influence team dynamics in innovative product design. A particular emphasis was placed on exploring the association between these two strategies and team cohesion and team collaboration. Analogies were coded for 'analogical distance' (i.e., within-domain or between-domain) and 'analogical purpose' (i.e., problem identification, function finding, solution generation and explanation). Results indicated that the presence of either analogizing or mental simulation was related to team cohesion and team collaboration, with mental simulation having an especially marked association with team collaboration. Within-domain analogizing was found to enhance team collaboration but did not influence team cohesion. Furthermore, all types of analogical purpose showed a similar association with team cohesion, whereas solution generation and function finding had a stronger association with team collaboration. We propose that analogizing and mental simulations are strategies that serve valuable functions in engendering enhanced cohesion and collaboration, which might be expected to lead to more effective design outcomes, although this remains an empirical question in need of further corroboration.

Use of Analogies by Novice and Experienced Design Engineers

Volume 4: 20th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology; Second International Conference on Micro- and Nanosystems, 2008

This paper describes a study to understand the use of analogies by design engineers with differen... more This paper describes a study to understand the use of analogies by design engineers with different levels of experience. Protocol analyses of twelve design engineers have been analysed to understand the functions and reasoning of the analogies. The protocols are real world data from the aerospace industry. The findings indicate a significant difference in both the functions and reasoning by novices and experienced designers. Novices were found to predominantly transfer information without explicit reference to design issues, whereas experienced designers tended to either solve or identify problems. Experienced designers were found to reason about the function of a component and to some degree the predicted behaviour of the component, whereas the novices seem to lack such reasoning processes.

Contributions of consumer-perceived creativity and beauty to willingness-to-pay for design products

International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, 2014

ABSTRACT Consumer perception of creativity in design products equivalent in function was measured... more ABSTRACT Consumer perception of creativity in design products equivalent in function was measured using global single-item ratings of creativity. The measure was found to have a high level of agreement between raters and have discriminant validity to another aesthetic construct, that of beauty. In two experiments using designer lamps and wrist watches as stimuli, the present study shows how creativity and beauty both positively influence consumer willingness-to-pay (WtP) for the designed product, but each explains different parts of the variance. The results show that it is essential to develop separate models of creativity and beauty evaluations in consumer psychology, in that they seem to be distinct factors, explaining different parts of the variance in their consequences on WtP.

Judgments of Size Depend on Amount of Information

PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000

Exploring Creativity

Idea screening in engineering design using employee-driven wisdom of the crowds

ABSTRACT The paper investigates the question of screening ideas in the &#39;fuzzy front end&a... more ABSTRACT The paper investigates the question of screening ideas in the &#39;fuzzy front end&#39; of engineering design, examining the validity of employee voting schemes and related biases. After an employee-driven innovation project at {Company Name removed for review}, 99 ideas were to be screened for further development. Based on the concept of &#39;wisdom of the crowds&#39;, all ideas were individually rated by a broad selection of employees, and their choices of ideas and idea categories compared to those of a small team of senior marketers. The study also tested for two biases: visual complexity and endowment effect/ownership of ideas. The study shows that the crowd wisdom of employees significantly correlates with the preferences of the marketing team: overall, in top 12 selected ideas and in choice of idea categories. This match increases when including only the ratings of the most experienced employees. The experienced employees also proved to be less affected by visual complexity in the ideas presented. The endowment effect was potent in that every employee proved to be more likely to select their own ideas over others, but this effect disappeared when aggregating across the crowd of employees.

Integrating laboratory paradigms and ethnographic field studies for advancing analyses of creative processes

Procedings of the Second Conference on Creativity and Innovation in Design - DESIRE '11, 2011

Abstract This symposium responds to calls for an integration of in-vivo and in-vitro methods when... more Abstract This symposium responds to calls for an integration of in-vivo and in-vitro methods when studying how people tackle complex, open-ended issues in the areas of creativity, design, and innovation. Bringing together expertise from multiple perspectives and methodological backgrounds we explore fruitful ways towards integrative approaches to analyzing creative processes and practices. The theme is addressed from theoretical and practical viewpoints.

Effects of meaning and symmetry on judgments of size

Frontiers in psychology, 2014

Research has shown that people judge words as having bigger font size than non-words. This findin... more Research has shown that people judge words as having bigger font size than non-words. This finding has been interpreted in terms of processing fluency, with higher fluency leading to judgments of bigger size. If so, symmetric numbers (e.g., 44) which can be processed more fluently are predicted to be judged as larger than asymmetric numbers (e.g., 43). However, recent research found that symmetric numbers were judged to be smaller than asymmetric numbers. This finding suggests that the mechanisms underlying size judgments may differ in meaningful and meaningless materials. Supporting this notion, we showed in Experiment 1 that meaning increased judged size, whereas symmetry decreased judged size. In the next two experiments, we excluded several alternative explanations for the differences in size judgments between meaningful and meaningless materials in earlier studies. This finding contradicts the notion that the mechanism underlying judgments of size is processing fluency.

The relationship of analogical distance to analogical function and preinventive structure: the case of engineering design

Memory & Cognition, 2007

Analogy was studied in real-world engineering design, using the in vivo method. Analogizing was f... more

An In Situ Study of Analogical Reasoning in Novice and Experienced Design Engineers

Journal of Mechanical Design, 2009

This paper describes a study to understand the use of analogies by design engineers with differen... more This paper describes a study to understand the use of analogies by design engineers with different levels of experience in a variant design domain. Protocol analyses of twelve design engineers have been analysed to understand the functions and reasoning of the analogies. The protocols are real world data from the aerospace industry. The findings indicate a significant difference in both the use of analogies by novices and experienced designers and the reasoning from analogies. Novices were found to predominantly transfer information related to the form without explicit reference to design issues, whereas experienced designers tended to use analogies for problem solving and problem identification. Experienced designers were found to use the analogy to reason about the function of a component and the predicted behaviour of the component, whereas the novices seem to lack such reasoning processes.

Distributed idea screening in stage–gate development processes

Journal of Engineering Design, 2012

This paper investigates the gate screening of ideas in engineering design, by examination of the ... more This paper investigates the gate screening of ideas in engineering design, by examination of the validity of employee voting schemes and biases associated with such voting. After conducting an employee-driven innovation project at a major producer of disposable medical equipment, 99 ideas had to be screened for further development. Inspired by the concept of ‘wisdom of the crowd’, all ideas

A methodology for studying design cognition in the real-world

Proceedings from the First Nordic Design Research …, 2005

The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical desi... more The in vivo research methodology holds promise to improve some of the limitations of typical design cognition methodologies. Whereas typical design cognition methodology use protocol analysis (utilizing special 'think-aloud' instructions and/or artificial settings) or retrospective analyses, in vivo research attempts to study design thinking and reasoning 'live' or 'online' as it takes place in the real world. No special instructions are used since the method relies on natural dialogue taking place between designers. By recording verbalizations at product development meetings (or other suitable objects of study), transcribing, and coding the data, it is possible to test hypotheses about design cognition in the real-world. This promises to improve the ecological validity over typical design cognition studies. Problems with the methodology include labor-intensiveness leading to small samples (possible sampling errors). To deal with this problem, it is recommended to supplement in vivo research with traditional larger sample laboratory studies.

Creative cognition: analogy and incubation

CREATIVE COGNITION: ANALOGY AND INCUBATION Bo T. Christensen Department of Psychology, University... more

Design requirements, epistemic uncertainty and solution development strategies in software design

Design Studies, 2010

We pursued an information-processing analysis of the workshop design transcripts to examine the w... more

Analogical reasoning and mental simulation in design: two strategies linked to uncertainty resolution

Design Studies, 2009

Collaborative problem–solution co-evolution in creative design

by Stefan Wiltschnig, Bo Christensen, and Linden J Ball

Volume 34, Issue 5, September 2013, Pages 515–542, 2013

Creative design concepts are often viewed as developing iteratively, with the design problem and ... more Creative design concepts are often viewed as developing iteratively, with the design problem and solutions ‘co-evolving’ in a mutually adaptive manner. We report a study examining whether the co-evolution concept captures the creativity arising in collaborative, team-based design practice. The analysis revealed that co-evolution episodes occurred regularly and embodied various directional transitions between problem and solution spaces. Moreover, the team leader often initiated this co-evolution. Co-evolution episodes linked with other creative activities such as analogising and mental simulation and there was a clear association between co-evolution and expressions of epistemic uncertainty, suggesting that designers were dealing with considerable complexity and ambiguity. Our findings support the view that co-evolution is the ‘engine’ of creativity in collaborative design.