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Cognition & The Intrinsic User Experience

Even when experiencing the same stimulus at the same time, many users will have completely unique experiences. That doesn’t mean an experience can’t be architected that utilizes knowledge about cognition to increase goal conversion. We create experiences to illicit a response from users; those users’ responses are either extrinsic (e.g., subscribing to a newsletter) or intrinsic (e.g., developing brand loyalty).

Easier Is Better Than Better

The paradox of choice says that the more options available to an individual, the harder it becomes to make a selection. For example, if there are free samples of jam being given out at the store, you are more likely to get people to buy a jar of jam when only six selections are available as opposed to 24. More choices don’t make the selection process easier for people, but having no choices takes away some of the freedom they believe they have.

Is God an Accident?

Despite the vast number of religions, nearly everyone in the world believes in the same things: the existence of a soul, an afterlife, miracles, and the divine creation of the universe. Recently psychologists doing research on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that may account for this phenomenon. One: human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena. And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry. Which leads to the question…