Boundary Extension
A cognitive bias where people remember scenes as being more expansive than they actually were. Important for understanding how users perceive and recall visual information, aiding in better visual design decisions.
368 topics found for:
“cognitive theory”
Bizarreness Effect
A cognitive bias where bizarre or unusual information is better remembered than common information. Useful for designers to create memorable and engaging user experiences by incorporating unique elements.
Hard-Easy Effect
A cognitive bias where people overestimate the probability of success for difficult tasks and underestimate it for easy tasks. Useful for designers to understand user confidence and design
Salience Bias
A cognitive bias where people focus on the most noticeable or prominent information while ignoring less conspicuous details. Important for understanding user decision-making and ensuring balanced presentation of information.
Information Foraging
The theory that users search for information in a manner similar to animals foraging for food, aiming to maximize value while minimizing effort. Important for designing efficient and user-centered information retrieval systems.
Deep Processing
A cognitive approach that involves meaningful analysis of information, leading to better understanding and retention. Crucial for designing educational and informational content that promotes deep engagement and learning.
Inductive Research
A research approach that starts with observations and develops broader generalizations or theories from them. Useful for discovering patterns and generating new theories from data.
Clustering Illusion
A cognitive bias where people see patterns in random data. Important for designers to improve data interpretation and avoid false conclusions based on perceived random patterns.
List Length Effect
A phenomenon where the probability of recalling an item from a list depends on the length of the list. Important for understanding memory processes and designing effective information presentation.
Limited Attention
The concept that humans have a finite capacity for attention, influencing how they perceive and interact with information. Crucial for designing user experiences that are not overwhelming and facilitate focus.
Curse Of Knowledge
A cognitive bias where someone mistakenly assumes that others have the same background knowledge they do. Essential for designers to ensure communications and products are clear and accessible to all users, regardless of their background knowledge.
Less Is Better Effect
A cognitive bias where people prefer a smaller set of higher-quality options over a larger set with lower overall quality. Useful for designing product offerings and experiences that emphasize quality over quantity for users.
Availability Heuristic
A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. Crucial for understanding how people make decisions and the biases that influence their choices.
Escalation of Commitment
A cognitive bias where individuals or organizations continue to invest in a failing project or decision due to the amount of resources already committed. Important for designers to recognize and mitigate their own risks of continuing unsuccessful initiatives.
Hyperbolic Discounting
A cognitive bias where people disproportionately prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, later rewards. Important for understanding and designing around user decision-making and reward structures.
Crystallized Intelligence
The ability to use learned knowledge and experience, often increasing with age and accumulated learning. Important for understanding how expertise and knowledge accumulation impact design and decision-making.
Certainty Effect
A cognitive bias where people give greater weight to outcomes that are certain compared to those that are merely probable. Important for designers to consider how users weigh certain outcomes more heavily in their decision-making.
Seven Stages of Action
A model by Don Norman outlining the cognitive steps users take when interacting with a system: goal formation, planning, specifying, performing, perceiving, interpreting, and comparing. Important for designing user-friendly and effective products by understanding and supporting user behavior at each stage.
Planning Fallacy
A cognitive bias where individuals underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions while overestimating the benefits. Important for realistic project planning and setting achievable goals for designers.
Hot Hand Fallacy
The mistaken belief that a person who has experienced success in a random event has a higher probability of further success in additional attempts. Crucial for understanding and designing around user decision-making biases.
Horn Effect
A cognitive bias where one negative trait of a person or thing influences the perception of other traits. Important for designing experiences that counteract or mitigate negative biases in user perception.
Semantic Encoding
The process of encoding sensory input that has particular meaning or can be applied to a context, enabling deeper processing and memory retention. Important for understanding how information is processed and stored, enhancing design of educational content.
Functional Fixedness
A cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. Important for designers to foster creative problem-solving and innovation.
Performance Load
The mental and physical effort required to complete a task, influencing user experience and performance. Crucial for designing systems that minimize cognitive and physical load, enhancing usability and efficiency.
Heuristic
A rule-of-thumb or shortcut that simplifies decision-making and problem-solving processes. Essential for designing user-friendly interfaces that facilitate quick and efficient decision-making.
Dunning-Kruger Effect
A cognitive bias where individuals with low ability at a task overestimate their ability, while experts underestimate their competence. Crucial for designers to create educational content and user interfaces that accommodate varying levels of user expertise.
Framing Bias
A cognitive bias where people's decisions are influenced by how information is presented rather than just the information itself. Crucial for designers to minimize bias in how information is presented to users.
InfoVis
Information Visualization (InfoVis) is the study and practice of visual representations of abstract data to reinforce human cognition. Crucial for transforming complex data into intuitive visual formats, enabling faster insights and better decision-making.
Take the Best Heuristic
A decision-making rule where individuals choose the option with the highest perceived value based on the first good reason that comes to mind, ignoring other information. Crucial for understanding and designing for quick decision-making processes.
Halo Effect
A cognitive bias where the perception of one positive trait influences the perception of other unrelated traits. Important for designers to manage and utilize this bias effectively in user experience design.
Risk Compensation
The theory that people adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk, often taking more risks when they feel more protected. Important for designing safety features and understanding behavior changes in response to risk perception.
Optimism Bias
A cognitive bias that causes people to believe they are less likely to experience negative events and more likely to experience positive events than others. Crucial for understanding user risk perception and designing systems that account for unrealistic optimism.
Restraint Bias
A cognitive bias where individuals overestimate their ability to control impulsive behavior, leading to overexposure to temptations. Important for designing systems that help users manage self-control and avoid overexposure to temptations.
Declarative Memory
A type of long-term memory involving information that can be consciously recalled, such as facts and events. Important for understanding how users retain and recall information in design.
Generation Effect
A phenomenon where information is better remembered if it is generated from one's own mind rather than simply read. Useful for designing educational and interactive content that enhances memory retention.
Repetition Blindness
A phenomenon where people fail to recognize a repeated item in a visual sequence, impacting information processing and perception. Important for understanding visual perception and designing interfaces that avoid repetitive confusion.
Gambler’s Fallacy
A cognitive bias where individuals believe that past random events affect the probabilities of future random events. Important for designers to understand user decision-making biases related to randomness.
Chunking
A cognitive process that groups information into manageable units, making it easier to remember and process. Important for designing user interfaces that enhance usability and information retention.
Illusion of Validity
A cognitive bias where individuals overestimate the accuracy of their judgments, especially when they have a lot of information. Important for understanding and mitigating overconfidence in user decision-making.
Primacy Effect
The tendency for the first items presented in a sequence to be remembered better than those in the middle. Crucial for designing information presentation and improving memory retention.
Illusion of Transparency
A cognitive bias where individuals overestimate how well their thoughts, feelings, and emotions are understood by others. Crucial for designing communication and user interfaces that account for and mitigate this bias.
Expectation Bias
A cognitive bias where individuals' expectations influence their perceptions and judgments. Relevant for understanding how expectations skew perceptions and decisions among users.
Reference Dependence
A cognitive bias where individuals evaluate outcomes relative to a reference point rather than on an absolute scale. Essential for understanding decision-making and consumer behavior.
Iconic Memory
A type of sensory memory that briefly holds visual information for a fraction of a second. Useful for understanding how users process visual information and designing interfaces accordingly.
Recognition Over Recall
A design principle that suggests interfaces should minimize the need for users to recall information from memory, instead providing cues to aid recognition. Essential for creating user-friendly interfaces that reduce cognitive load and improve usability.
Neuroaesthetics
The study of how the brain perceives and responds to art and design, exploring the neural basis for aesthetic experiences. Important for understanding the neurological underpinnings of aesthetic preferences and enhancing design impact.
Positivity Effect
A cognitive bias where individuals tend to focus on positive information or events more than negative ones, especially as they age. Useful for understanding user preferences and designing experiences that emphasize positive outcomes.
Endowment Effect
A cognitive bias where people ascribe more value to things merely because they own them. Useful for understanding user attachment and designing persuasive experiences.
Central Limit Theorem
A statistical theory that states that the distribution of sample means approximates a normal distribution as the sample size becomes larger, regardless of the population's distribution. Important for making inferences about population parameters and ensuring the validity of statistical tests in digital product design.
Placement Bias
A cognitive bias where people overemphasize information that is placed prominently or in a way that catches their attention first. Crucial for designing interfaces and information displays that manage user attention effectively.
Semmelweis Reflex
A cognitive bias where new evidence or knowledge is automatically rejected because it contradicts established norms or beliefs. Important for recognizing resistance to change and designing strategies to encourage openness to new ideas among designers.
Category Size Bias
A cognitive bias where people judge the likelihood of an event based on the size of its category rather than its actual probability. Crucial for designers to understand how category size influences user perception and decision-making processes.
Convergent Thinking
A cognitive process where ideas are brought together to find a single, best solution to a problem. Important for problem-solving and decision-making in design processes.
Assumed Similarity Bias
A cognitive bias where people assume others share the same beliefs, values, or preferences as themselves. Important for helping designers avoid projecting their own biases and assumptions onto users during research and design.
Effort Justification
A cognitive bias where people attribute greater value to outcomes that required significant effort to achieve. Useful for designing experiences that recognize and reward user effort and persistence.
Bundling Bias
A cognitive bias where individuals evaluate the value of bundled items differently than they would if the items were evaluated separately. Important for understanding user behavior and designing effective product bundles and pricing strategies.
Contrast Effect
The enhancement or diminishment of perception, cognition, or related performance as a result of exposure to a stimulus of greater or lesser value in the same dimension. Useful for designing interfaces that leverage contrasting elements to guide user attention and behavior.
Perky Effect
A phenomenon where vivid mental images can interfere with actual perception, causing individuals to mistake imagined experiences for real ones. Important for ensuring that marketing and product design set realistic user expectations to avoid disappointment and maintain brand integrity.
Third-Person Effect
A cognitive bias where people tend to believe that others are more affected by media messages and persuasive communications than they are themselves. Important for understanding media influence and designing communications that account for this bias in user perception.
Intentionality Bias
The tendency to attribute intentional actions to others' behaviors, often overestimating their intent. Important for understanding and mitigating biases in user interactions and feedback.