Abstract

This paper investigated and discovered the differences that exist between craft artisans’ and design trainers’ in-depth cognitive levels during the use of the imaginative approach in a design training program. We employed a concept network method based on the associative concept dictionary to extract the verbalized thoughts of four craft artisans and four design trainers. We then identified semantic relationships based on factor analysis. Our findings revealed that craft artisans tended to activate lower in-depth cognitive levels and design trainers tended to generate deeper in-depth cognitive levels. Our study demonstrated that craft artisans tended to place greater focus on aspects of an artifact, such as operation (replace, reduce, and so on); shape (waist, body, and so on); proportion (length, size, and so on). Alternatively, design trainers gave more consideration to the presence of surroundings issues such as scene (silverware, custom, and so on); companion (fruit, bagel, and so on); and appeal (fresh,salad, and so on). We discovered that the employment of widely used design methods for training tended to keep craft artisans in a mental state that created perceptual barriers and obstructed their imaginative approach.

Keywords

Creativity, cognition, imagination, craft artisan, design trainer

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Jul 26th, 9:00 AM

The imaginative approach: Characteristics of craft artisans’ and design trainers’ in-depth cognitive levels during a design training program

This paper investigated and discovered the differences that exist between craft artisans’ and design trainers’ in-depth cognitive levels during the use of the imaginative approach in a design training program. We employed a concept network method based on the associative concept dictionary to extract the verbalized thoughts of four craft artisans and four design trainers. We then identified semantic relationships based on factor analysis. Our findings revealed that craft artisans tended to activate lower in-depth cognitive levels and design trainers tended to generate deeper in-depth cognitive levels. Our study demonstrated that craft artisans tended to place greater focus on aspects of an artifact, such as operation (replace, reduce, and so on); shape (waist, body, and so on); proportion (length, size, and so on). Alternatively, design trainers gave more consideration to the presence of surroundings issues such as scene (silverware, custom, and so on); companion (fruit, bagel, and so on); and appeal (fresh,salad, and so on). We discovered that the employment of widely used design methods for training tended to keep craft artisans in a mental state that created perceptual barriers and obstructed their imaginative approach.

 

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