Cognitive Science and Design Studies (CSDS)

• This guest lecture was given at the Architecture Group, National Chiao Tung University, HsinChu, Taiwan as a part of the graduate course offered by Professor Yu-Tung Liu,

Objectives:

The purpose of this module is to apply theories and concepts of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence to explore design thinking.

Contents:

• Four learning and concept development stages are involved in this module: (1) the incubation stage, (2) the illumination stage (2 weeks), (3) the concept formation stage (1 week), and (4) the creative work stage (2 weeks).
• There is some required reading for this module. The suggested reading list will be posted after September 22. A written description in either Chinese or English explaining your interest in this area is also required.
• The final project will be a cognitive experiment conducted in late December as a team project to explore design thinking.

Methods of pedagogy

1. Incubation stage:

   Before this module starts, I strongly encourage you to do some reading on the topics of design studies, cognitive science applied in architecture, and theories of problem solving. The reading list and assignment one will be posted on the Web.

2. Illumination stage:

   From this stage on, we will meet on campus.

   The first two weeks of December, the class will concentrate on: (1) fundamentals and relationships between cognitive science and design studies, (2) concepts and theories of problem solving, and (3) methods of psychological experiments in architecture.

3. Concept formation stage:

   During this stage, we will focus on three topics: mental image, individual style, and creativity. Examples will be introduced in this period to illuminate the theories developed so far. The class will be divided into teams. Each team will formulate an experiment to explore mental images, rationales, styles, or creativity in design.

4. Creative work stage:

   The cognitive experiment will be run in the second week of January. Final results will be compiled into a paper in the third week of January. We will work as a team on how to write a good research paper in Chinese or English.