Investigating the nature of intuition the 1970s, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman identified cognitive bias as heuristic reasoning (cognitive shortcuts) which results in errors of statistical judgment, social attribution and memory. Ubiquitous throughout human cognition, such errors clearly skew the reliability of anecdotal and verbal protocol analysis. Reminiscent of McLuhan’s notion of hot and cool media cognitive biases have also been grouped into either hot or cold states of emotional arousal. E.g., highly attentive and interactive information affording heightened patterns arousal or ‘hot cognition’  bias rapid emotionally-charged decision making without analytical reflection. Conversely, low attentive non-engaging information affording low patterns of arousal or ‘cold cognition’ bias calmer reflective thought processes.¹ The above diagram is taken from a recent visual study of cognitive bias which can be found here.

As Peter Rowe argued, the practice of architectural design is inherently heuristic, exerting ‘a strong and dynamic influence over subsequent sequences of problem interpretation, solution generation, problem representation and solution assessment.’² Based on protocol analyses of architectural designers at work, Rowe identifies five classes of heuristic constraints which shape architectural production: 1) anthropometric analogies, 2) literal analogies, 3) environmental relations, 4) typologies and 5) formal languages. A more extended analysis to the one offered below can be found in his 1991 book Design Thinking.

1. Abelson, R. P. (1963). Computer simulation of “hot cognition”, in S. S. Tomkins & S. Messick (Eds.), Computer simulation of personality (pp. 277-302). New York: Wiley

2. Rowe, P. (1999). A Priori Knowledge and Heuristic Reasoning in Architectural Design. In Classic Readings in Architecture, edited by K. Spreckelmeyer & J. Stein. WCB/McGraw Hill. Originally published in Journal of Architectural Education 36, no.1 (1982) p.18