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because once the model is
!
fixed, any more decisions are not needed. So decision is
one time and early decisions were encouraged.
But to be adaptive, what becomes most important is to judge what is happening
now and to make a right decision for the next step. We have to make decisions for
every step forward. So decision making becomes multi-step and each decision
making becomes critically important. Therefore, consideration about humans,
especially about
their decision-making, becomes
increasingly important
in
mechanical design.
9 Emotion Prioritizes Jobs
Emotion may be considered as a gift from heaven to us to adapt to the changes in
order to survive. In fact, some brain psychologists reveal that anger, for example,
restricts our brain activities to concentrate on a particular action. This is the same as
we do in computer programming, known as an “interrupt”. By interrupting, com-
puters can prioritize their jobs and do the job with highest priority
!
first. Therefore,
emotion may be regarded as a tool to recognize an event that needs immediate
attention and prioritize our actions. So it plays a very important role in our decision
making.
10 Memory
To recognize such an event that needs immediate attention, memory plays a very
important role. As mechanical products used to be made of hardware alone, it was
not easy to memorize the past events, although hardware can memorize, too. But
their capabilities are very much limited. But now majority of mechanical products
are combination of hardware and software. Or in some cases, software occupies the
major portion of the product. Thus, it is no more dif
!
cult to remember what has
happened in the past. Further, software enables mechanical products to learn from
other cases. They can memorize these cases and when something unexpected
happens, machines can communicate with the user and help them to come up with
the best decision.
What designers have to do now is not to foresee the operating conditions as they
did in the past, but to provide machines with communication capabilities to provide
such memorizing functions.
Currently, designers are trying to respond to the quickly diversifying users'
requirements by widening a variety of products as much as possible. But this does
not make any sense, because what is diversifying is the operating or use conditions.
So designers should focus their attention on the issues of operations. To cope truly
with diversi
!
cation is how we can make our mechanical products work best in
