NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology

Matrix Factorization Techniques for Recommender Systems

Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

Online games satisfy the basic requirements of learning environments and can provide engaging learning experiences for students. However, a model that successfully integrates educational theory and game design aspects do not exist. Thus, in this paper an experiential gaming model that is based on experiential learning theory, flow theory and game design is presented. The model stresses the importance of providing the player with immediate feedback, clear goals and challenges that are matched to his/her skill level. The flow theory is used as a framework to facilitate positive user experience in order to maximize the impact of educational games. Especially, the factors that contribute to flow experience are discussed. The experiential gaming model can be used to design and analyse educational computer games. However, the model works only as a link between educational theory and game design and does not provide the means to a whole game design project.

/pdf/digital-game-based-learning-towards-an-experiential-gaming-3p871igeao.pdf

Digital game-based learning: Towards an experiential gaming model

Purpose – The importance of innovations in business management is a widely accepted hypothesis. Lately the research on innovation has widened to include consideration of the impact of social networks on the innovation. This paper aims to contribute to research on this approach by suggesting a framework for studying the social aspects of economic innovations.Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses economic innovation as a product of organizational competencies, highlighting the importance of social network.Findings – This paper has three goals: we clarify the concept of economic innovation, we present the essential questions for studying the economic innovation process, and we present a proposal for an empirical approach and address problems in collecting data about economic innovations.Originality/value – The paper opens a new, socio‐psychological approach to studying the innovation processes. It proposes a holistic approach to the phenomenon by combining these with the material aspects of an or...

Framework to study the social innovation networks

Scientific findings have suggested a two-fold structure of the cognitive process. By using the heuristic thinking mode, people automatically process information that tends to be invariant across days, whereas by using the explicit thinking mode people explicitly process information that tends to be variant compared to typical previously learned information patterns. Previous studies on creativity found an association between creativity and the brain regions in the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the default mode network and the executive network. However, which neural networks contribute to the explicit mode of thinking during idea generation remains an open question. We employed an fMRI paradigm to examine which brain regions were activated when participants (n = 16) mentally generated alternative uses for everyday objects. Most previous creativity studies required participants to verbalize responses during idea generation, whereas in this study participants produced mental alternatives without verbalizing. This study found activation in the left anterior insula when contrasting idea generation and object identification. This finding suggests that the insula (part of the brain's salience network) plays a role in facilitating both the central executive and default mode networks to activate idea generation. We also investigated closely the effect of the serial order of idea being generated on brain responses: The amplitude of fMRI responses correlated positively with the serial order of idea being generated in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is part of the central executive network. Positive correlation with the serial order was also observed in the regions typically assigned to the default mode network: the precuneus/cuneus, inferior parietal lobule and posterior cingulate cortex. These networks support the explicit mode of thinking and help the individual to convert conventional mental models to new ones. The serial order correlated negatively with the BOLD responses in the posterior presupplementary motor area, left premotor cortex, right cerebellum and left inferior frontal gyrus. This finding might imply that idea generation without a verbal processing demand reflecting lack of need for new object identification in idea generation events. The results of the study are consistent with recent creativity studies, which emphasize that the creativity process involves working memory capacity to spontaneously shift between different kinds of thinking modes according to the context.

/pdf/default-mode-and-executive-networks-areas-association-with-3pghi1vxk6.pdf

Default Mode and Executive Networks Areas: Association with the Serial Order in Divergent Thinking.

This article presents neuromarketing as a way to detect brain activation during customer engagement. Neuromarketing is a field of marketing research that studies consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. We established a Virtual Customer Journey model based on the consultative selling process to study customer engagement by using brain scans. Consultative selling suggests that a customer’s shopping experience is managed by the salesperson’s behaviour and in-store marketing assets, and that the customer gets engaged step by step. A total of 16 test subjects were shown video clips and still pictures from a consultative sales process at Nokia’s flagship stores, and their brain activity was scanned. The results show that test subjects were able to associate themselves with people and events on the video and they felt safe and comfortable during the consultative selling process. The study implies that laboratories can build virtual environments that resemble real shopping environments where customers can participate in the buying process and respond to events displayed on the screen, and that neuroimaging is useful in providing valuable information on customer behaviour that is not achievable otherwise. Executives love the idea of using brain scans. As brain imaging and neuroscience develop, neuromarketing companies will be able to pull out more sophisticated data about what makes people want to buy or avoid certain items. The big question is whether neuromarketing can push a ‘buy button’ in your brain.

/pdf/neuromarketing-understanding-customers-subconscious-2s6zmrnzhw.pdf

Neuromarketing: Understanding Customers' Subconscious Responses to Marketing

-- The user’s emotional involvement plays an important role in adopting new technologies. The level of engagement with and adoption of new digital applications depends on various personal, contextual, and emotional factors. In our study, we assessed the personal factors, such as gender differences, of perceiving and adopting technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and conventional video. Furthermore, we assessed what kind of emotions are involved in and invoked by the context of new technologies. This is a quantitative study in which students were asked to perform experiments on VR, AR, and conventional videos. After the experiments, participants were asked to fill out a predefined survey about their emotional reactions to the experiments. The results show, unlike the prior research, that female participants were more enthusiastic about the usage of new technologies than males. The user experience of VR, AR and conventional videos triggered more positive emotions among females than males. For practitioners, the results  suggest that the audio-visual technologies could engage more females than males. For academics, this study provides further research on how to trigger users to adopt new audio-visual technologies .

/pdf/gender-differences-in-perceptions-of-conventional-video-1up8zhh2ow.pdf

Jyrki Suomala

Papers

Framework to study the social innovation networks

Default Mode and Executive Networks Areas: Association with the Serial Order in Divergent Thinking.

Neuromarketing: Understanding Customers' Subconscious Responses to Marketing

Gender Differences in Perceptions of Conventional Video, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Students' problem solving in the LEGO/Logo learning environment