Design creativity is hard to study. Research in situated cognition provides the basis of novel computational models of design creativity. Situated cognition brings the concepts of first-person knowledge, constructive memory, interaction and the way a person views the world into computational models. These models have the capacity to explain why repeating a design request results in a different design and why it is possible for a computational model to be continuously “creative”. 

John Gero's talk, "Cognitively-Based Computational Models of Design Creativity," will introduce the basic ideas of situated cognition and their relation to design creativity. It presents a number of implemented cognitively-based, computational models of design creativity that demonstrate the effect of first-person knowledge, the effect of designer-artifact interaction, the effect of constructive memory and of social effects. It will be  shown how these systems can be used to assist with tough practical problems.

John Gero is a Research Professor at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. Formerly he was Professor of Design Science and Director of the Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney. He is the author or editor of 48 books and over 600 research papers and book chapters. He has been a Visiting Professor of Architecture, Civil Engineering, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Design and Computation and Mechanical Engineering at MIT, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, Columbia University and CMU in the USA, at Strathclyde and Loughborough Universities in the UK, at INSA-Lyon and Provence University in France and at EPFL-Lausanne in Switzerland.