Opportunities to Advance Engineering Cognition and Project Level Decision Making by Adopting Emergent Methods from Neuroscience

摘要

Applications of neuroscience are leading to advances in both economics and architecture. For example, the neural correlates of decision making in bargaining games can predict trust among partners. A growing field of study in neuro-architecture is helping measure how the design of urban spaces can improve cortical function. The intent of this paper is to communicate details about the benefits of integrating neuroscience to engineering and project management research and to explain what is involved in adopting these methods and the procedures. The benefits are numerous: offering a new data source, opportunity to advance theoretical understanding, and visualization of the cognitive processing that produce judgment and decisions. These benefits seem to outweigh the learning curve associated with the measurement tools and nuances of the experimental design. There are several instruments such as electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Another is functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which blends the benefits of both EEG and fMIR by providing better spatial resolution and a more realistic environment for data collection. In a pilot study, students were given ten engineering challenges on the most pressing issues facing humanity. The problems spanned topics such as renewable energy, water quality, poverty, and air pollution. Five of the ten challenges included an additional parameter about sustainability. When generating solutions that required meeting the additional parameter, a decrease occurred in area of the brain known to be involved in working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, and abstract reasoning. Conceptually, these results provide insight into the neural mechanisms that support and facilitate engineering solution generation but also have real world implications. When writing or responding to an engineering request for proposal, when and how parameters are presented may elicit very distinct responses. Suggested areas of future research are also presented including opportunities to apply neuroscience methods in design cognition and hazard detection.