RDC Blog

Researchers from Israel have added to the literature indicating that there are cross-cultural consistencies in odors assessed as pleasant.  Israelis and Ethiopians generally agreed with each other and an electronic “nose” on whether smells they were exposed to were pleasant.  The electronic nose was programmed to respond to experienced scents using a database of smells which previous research has shown were positively received.  The odors tested were independent of context and blended for this experiment. 

Rafi Haddad, Abebe Medhanie, Yehudah Roth, David Harel, and Noam Sobel.  2010.  “Predicting Odor Pleasantness with an Electronic Nose.”  Public Library of Science:  Computational Biology, http://www.ploscompbiol.org

Designers often want to ask people questions on surveys that may be difficult to answer honestly – not because survey-takers don’t know the answer to the questions, but because they feel there will be negative repercussions to answering them honestly.  For example, workers in an open plan office spaces may feel that if they state that they have trouble concentrating in their workstation they will be judged as somehow deficient.  Bokenholt and van der Heijden have developed the mixture-item randomized response method for use in this situation.  In the test of their methodology reported, people on disability assistance were asked questions such as “In the last 12 months, have you taken a small job alone or together with your friends that you got paid for without informing the social welfare agency.”  Participants were told to answer this question “yes” when an electronic simulated dice roll incorporated into the survey software totaled 2, 3, or 4; to answer “no” when the dice totaled 11 or 12, and truthfully in all cases.”  The number of yes and no responses that could be expected based on the “forced” yes or no answers can be compared to the total number received, to understand the truthful responses to the question raised.  This method has been shown in practice to “motivate most of the respondents to answer truthfully.”

Denise Gellene.  2010.  “Surveying Sensitive Topics:  New Tools Help Correct for Survey Bias.”  Kellogg Insights, http:///insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu.

How people in crowds physically organize themselves is important – it influences how groups will respond in emergency situations.  Group leaders, who play a crucial role in most crises, position themselves at the edge of groups and not in the middle of them.  This finding has implications for the shape of spaces through which people will evacuate a structure, for example.

“Follow the Leader:  How Those in Charge Make Themselves Known.”  2010.  Press release, University of Leeds, http://www.leeds.ac.uk.

By varying the tempo and mode of short music clips, Hunter and his colleagues were able to confirm earlier research on human emotional responses to these attributes of music.  Faster  (more than 90 beats per minute, approximately) pieces and those in a major key generally made listeners feel happier, while slower (45-89 beats per minute, roughly) music and compositions in a minor key made people feel sadder.  Listeners also usually prefer happy sounding music.   Study participants had mixed happy/sad feelings when they listened to music segments with conflicting emotional cues (fast-minor, slow-major).  Atmospheric music is an important determinant of place experience.

Patrick Hunter, E. Schellenberg, and Ulrich Schimmack.  2010.  “Feelings and Perceptions of Happiness and Sadness Induced by Music:  Similarities, Differences, and Mixed Emotions.”  Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 47-56.

A recent study of people from 60 to 80 years old found that people in this age range have difficulty ignoring distractions while they’re forming memories.  Even knowing in advance of an upcoming distraction does not alleviate the problem.  This finding has repercussions for the design of spaces where older individuals might need to learn new information, such as treatment rooms in doctor’s offices.  Low levels of audio and visual distractions are best in these environments.

Theodore Zanto, Kelly Hennigan, Mattias Ostberg, Wesley Clapp, and Adam Gazzaley.  2010  “Predictive Knowledge of Stimulus Relevance Does Not Influence Top-Down Suppression of Irrelevant Information in Older Adults.”  Cortex, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 564-574.

Kohn and Smith have added to the standing body of research findings indicating that classic brainstorming may not be the best way to gain new insights.  They have found that when a group brainstorms, it can fixate on one idea, and that fixation can prevent other ideas from being considered or suggested.  The brainstorming group becomes less creative because people present ideas that are similar to those that have already been stated. 

Nicholas Kohn and Steven Smith.  “Collaborative Fixation:  Effects of Others’ Ideas on Brainstorming.”   Applied Cognitive Psychology, in press.

Lee and Brand have evaluated the influence of perceived personal control on perceptions of distraction in workplaces.  They determined that perceptions of personal control are directly related to perceptions of distraction, with people who feel that they have more control over their physical environment being somewhat less distracted in office environments.  People who are less distracted feel that they performed better at their jobs.  It is important to note, however, that providing workers with a feeling of control over their environment does not eliminate the negative effects of environmental distractions.  Their study does indicate, for example, that if workers are assigned a desktop light or fan, these elements will slightly influence their perceptions of control, and that change may slightly influence their perceptions of distractions.  In the study, the ways that participants might control their environments included organization of their workstation, personalization of their work area, control over interpersonal interactions, control of temperature, lighting, and also personal management of their work process.  Distraction “refers to the degree to which employees feel distracted, disturbed or irritated by negative or otherwise unwanted stimuli within the workplace.”

So Young Lee and Jay Brand.  2010.  “Can Personal Control Over the Physical Environment Ease Distractions in Office Workplaces?”  Ergonomics, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 324-335.

Ecotherapy is a form of clinical psychology that focuses on “circles of mutual healing between the human mind and the natural world from which it evolved.  It includes horticultural therapy, wilderness excursion work, time stress management and certain kinds of animal-assisted therapy.”  As might be expected from the work of the Kaplans relating attention restoration to exposure to nature environments and Uhlrich’s work on stress reduction through nature exposure, ecotherapy seems to produce positive psychological responses:  “Disconnection from the natural world in which we evolved produces a variety of psychological symptoms that include anxiety, frustration, and depression.  These symptoms cannot be attributed solely to intrapsychic or intrafamilial dynamics.  Reconnection to the natural world – whether through gardens, animals, nature walks outside, or nature brought indoors – not only alleviates these symptoms, but also brings a larger capacity for health, self-esteem, self-relatedness, social connection, and joy.”

Craig Chalquist.  2009.  “A Look at the Ecotherapy Research Evidence.”  Ecopsychology, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 64-74.

We have reviewed many studies of embodied cognition in this blog – here’s another one.  Encasing a description of a negative, emotional situation in a container helps us to “pack away” the associated negative thoughts (Li, Wei, and Soman, in press).  Li and colleagues found that when written reports of negative emotional situations  (such as unsatisfied strong desires or regretted past-decisions) are placed in an envelope, related negative emotions are reduced.  Designers can use this information when working with clients or in their personal lives.

Xiuping Li, Liyuan Wei, and Dilip Soman.  “Physical Enclosure and Psychological Closure.” Psychological Science, in press.