Social Interactions in Post-design Phases in Product Development and Consumption: Computational Social Science Modeling - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 141

have a downward causal influence on agents, effectively circumscribing
technological advances “within a quite limited subset of the techno-economic
characteristics space. We could say that the paradigmatic, cumulative nature of
technological knowledge provides innovation avenues (Sahal 1985 ) which channel
technological evolution, while major discontinuities tend to be associated with
changes in paradigms.”
Compared to the large literature on technological evolution and trajectories, there
has been much less research on the co-evolution of technologies and consumer
preferences/values. Evidence of this is given the survey of the state-of-the-art in
Dosi and Nelson ( 2010 ) . They discuss research on how demand and other socio-
economic factors shape the direction of technological advance, but they do not cite
any research that specifically focuses on endogenous co-evolution of technology and
consumer preferences. However, there has been research on specific topics related to
co-evolution of technology and consumer preferences/values, for example: the role
of experimental users and diverse consume preferences (Malerba et al. 2007 ) ,
consumer resistance to innovations (Moldovan and Goldenberg 2004 ) , compatibil-
ity and innovation (Sosa and Gero 2007 ) , and innovation as changes in value systems
(Gero and Kannengiesser 2009 ) .
Separate from technological evolution, there is an extensive literature on con-
sumer preferences, opinions, and consumer behavior. Liggett ( 2010 ) evaluates
alternative methods for mapping consumer preferences as a population using
perceived product characteristics and their 'ideal product' which can be formalized
as a vector of values for each service characteristic of the product. Liggatt also uses
Multi-dimensional Scaling (MDS) to create a 2D map of a population of con-
sumers' ideal vectors relative to the available products. There is also extensive
research on how consumers influence each other's values and opinions through
social interactions, e.g. Friedkin and Johnsen ( 1999 ) . This literature guided our
design decisions for social influence mechanisms and patterns, including topology
of consumer social networks, the behavior of opinion leadership, susceptibility to
social influence, and homophily as a primary factor in the determining strength of
social ties and thus the degree of influence between any two consumers.
11.2.2 Situated Cognition and Innovation
Situated cognition (Clancey 1997 ) provides the theoretical basis for our design of
agent cognition. Any cognitive system operates within its own worldview and that
worldview affects its understanding of its interactions with its environment
(Clancey 1997 ; Gero 2008 ) . In essence, what you think the world is about affects
what it is about for you.
A person or group of people is 'situated' because they have a worldview that is
based on their experience (Smith and Gero 2001 ) . Situated cognition involves three
ideas: situations, constructive memory and interaction. Situations are mental con-
structs that structure and hence give meaning to what is observed and perceived