What is Cognitive Ergomonics? Part 1

You’ve probably heard of ergonomics. You might even have an ergonomic workspace, with a chair or desk customized for your body. But what about your mind? Does your workspace affect how your brain works, like it affects how your body feels? We think so.

Say you have a chair that’s too tall for you. You have to spend the whole day hunched over your desk, and you end up with lower back pain that prevents you from doing your job as best you can. Now, what if you had a workspace that’s perfectly suited to your body, but you’re constantly distracted with sights and sounds from coworkers? You can’t just escape and work alone to concentrate – you need to collaborate! But then again, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you have work that requires concentration. How can you meet both needs? How can you have an office that allows for the right amount of collaboration and individual concentration? How can you minimize distractions and maximize productivity?

The facts:

• Interrupted thoughts cause 28% of an average day’s performance to be wasted.
• $650 billion per year is lost due to to wasted productivity.

Seems incredible, doesn’t it? But hang on – let’s try something. It might help convince you.

This ad is based on a famous experiment from the University of Illinois using a person in a gorilla suit. It’s about inattention blindness – a phenomenon that happens when you focusing strongly on one thing, completely missing something else. And it doesn’t just affect sight – you can experience inattention blindness by focusing on auditory information as well.

Which brings us back to my first question: how can you have a workspace that allows for the right amount of collaboration and individual concentration? A workplace that lets you count the passes and still see the moonwalking bear? Stay tuned…

1. 

   Kimball Office Furniture Blog

   July 24, 2009 3:26 pm

   [...] we last talked about cognitive ergonomics, we discussed inattention blindness, the phenomena where focusing on one thing makes you completely miss other things, however strange [...]

2. 

   Kimball Office Furniture Blog

   July 31, 2009 11:54 pm

   [...] our cognitive ergonomics series, you’ve learned about inattention blindness (and moonwalking bears). You’ve stared at the back of your hand (thank you!) and read [...]

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