[Sigia-l] Sigia-l Digest, Vol 64, Issue 9

[Kevin Bishop]

Eric,

If I'm reading you correctly -- and you've been conservative in your
explanations so I very well may not be -- your premise that everyone's
brain chemistry creates similar or identical reactions to similar or
identical stimuli in group contexts is an exceedingly reductionist
perspective on human behavior and entirely too deterministic to be
considered in any way scientific. (Granted, it may not be your
intention to be scientific and embrace the skepticism that proposes a
hypothesis and then deliberately tests its assumptions.)

Can you point me to literature that describes tests where they
measured brain chemistry in the context of specific situations and in
the immediacy of the moment? We hear all the time of studies of brain
activity (not chemistry) when, for example, viewing photos of people
with different expressions, or when singing or reciting poetry, but
it's unclear to me how they'd gauge brain chemistry in the middle of
an activity.

Consider this: if brain chemistry was so simple and uniform across all
individuals, why is the treatment of a common illness like depression
so difficult and complicated to treat with pharmaceuticals?

With that said, I admire your interest and drive in trying to find a
common factor that would explain why people (clients) waffle in their
reactions to abstractions, on the one hand, and designs, on the other,
of information/UI's. For many of us it is -- no doubt! -- maddening.
;)


Cheers,
-kb
Kevin W Bishop
kevinwbishop at gmail.com


On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 5:00 AM,  <sigia-l-request at asis.org> wrote:
>
> You don't need brain samples. The chemistry of human reaction is already
> pretty well documented. What I hope to do is see if there is a correlation
> between what we observe as designers and how the brain has been shown to
> react to similar stimuli in other situations.
>
> I haven't done medical research since my university days. And I don't intend
> to start again now. But recent studies of brain chemistry seem to provide an
> explanation for a basic shift in attitude that I've noted empirically. I'll
> leave it to someone else to do MRI studies during actual usability testing
> :)
>
> Cheers,
> Eric
>
> -----------------------
> Eric Reiss
> CEO
> The FatDUX Group
> Copenhagen, Denmark
> http://www.fatdux.com
> office: (+45) 39 29 67 77
> mobile: (+45) 20 12 88 44
> skype: ericreiss
> twitter: @elreiss
>