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Tokyo: Seishin motion signals with barber-pole stimuli. Vision Research. Shobo Ltd. (in Japanese) 39(5), 915–932. 31) Liu, Y. H. (2010). The Research of Preference for ratio Intan PRAMESWARI*, Haruo HIBINO*, Shinichi KOYAMA* 27) Meng, Q. M. & Chang. J. H. (2000). The Study of of geometry shapes (Unpublished master’s thesis). Psychological Experiments. Taipei, Psychological National Yunlin Univ. of Science and Technology, *Chiba University, 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku, Chiba 263-8522, Japan Publishing Co., Ltd. (in Chinese) Yunlin. (in Chinese) Abstract: Culture is an important aspect to consider when designing a product, both as an inspiration and influence in the cognitive process of design. The cultural backgrounds of users and designers should be taken into account in the context of cognitive processing. Cultural schema refers to culture at the cognitive level, which provides references in the form of knowledge while also shaping perspectives. This study explores the role of cultural schema in culture-based product design by attempting to identify the opportunities and constraints posed by culture. Examples were drawn to explain about cultural schema role in designing products based on cultural artifacts that suggest design context interacted with cultural schema in design process that results in different interpretation of design from the same cultural artifact. Keywords: culture, schema, design, opportunities, constraints 1. Introduction design originated (e.g., Japanese design and Scandinavian In recent times, the borders between cultures have design). Such styles can be evident even in designs that are become blurred as a result of globalization, creating a not explicitly inspired by culture. multicultural world [1]. On the other hand, globalization The creative process of design always occurs on the has also produced a new awareness of local culture in an basis of some amount of prior knowledge [5]. The amount effort to preserve cultural values and identity. Given the of prior knowledge referenced in the design process need to express one’s identity—which includes local determines the novelty of the resulting design, whether the identity and its relationship to culture—there has been a design is an imitation, modification, or innovation. Prior revival of culture and tradition [2]. The trend toward knowledge itself is interrelated with the culture to which culture-based design is manifest in the localization and the designer belongs. The retrieval of prior knowledge is a “glocalization” movements. Localization aims to develop a cognition process that involves schema processing. design for the culture it originates from while glocalization The challenge of culture-based product design lies in aims to develop a culture-based design for the global understanding the opportunities and constraints presented market [3]. by culture. Identifying these opportunities and constraints Culture provides rich sources of references, inspiration, is an important part of the creative process, and such and opportunity in developing designs. At the same time, identification can be performed by investigating the culture can also impose constraints on how the design is schema in the context of culture. In turn, the information perceived. Cultural beliefs, values, and social practices will be beneficial to understand the influence posed by frame the way people relate to an object [4]. Different users culture to design development. with different cultural backgrounds can relate differently to Schema refers to the structure of prior knowledge and the perceived function of the same object. On the other the cognitive process of interpreting information hand, the designer’s cultural background also influences [5][6][7][8]. In the context of culture, cultural schema is design development. This is evident in the development of the structure of prior knowledge shared by the population design styles based on the cultural group from which the of a cultural group [9]. The content of schema includes Journal of the Science of Design Vol. xx No. x 20xx x 10 Journal of the Science of Design Vol. xx No. x 2017 Journal of the Science of Design Vol. 1 No. 1 2017 57 various types of knowledge—both abstract and framework of culture-based design process with schema concrete—consisting of information, images, ideas, theory approach. The understanding on culture and scenarios, and so forth. In the context of culture, the cognition in general is imperative to understand the more knowledge structured inside a schema relates to a cultural specific theme of cultural schema. In turn, understanding on group’s way of life. Such knowledge is particular to the how schema works and how it could be applied to design is cultural group and is shared by its members, defining its necessary to understand how cultural schema works and cultural schema. applied in design. This study examines the role of cultural schema in the Examples of application of schema and cultural schema creative process of designing a culture-based product, in product design are discussed to aid the understanding. based on the assumption that cognitive processes, including creative processes, are influenced by culture as a cognitive 4. Schema Theory attribute [10]. The cognition process in designing a product Bartlett defines schema as an organized structure of past involves the activation of various schemata, including knowledge, experiences, and expectations regarding certain cultural schema as prior knowledge that acts as a reference. aspects of the world [6]. In other words, schema refers to The reference of prior knowledge is then identified in terms structures of knowledge that consist of information (objects, of opportunities and constraints to be either encouraged or events, behavior, images, etc.) and the relationships between overcome in the effort to develop a new design. each part, which act as references to interpret new information [7][8]. The content of schema can vary by 2. Objectives individual, depending on the individual’s knowledge and Culture and design, particularly design strategy in experience. Schemata represent knowledge on all levels, developing culture-based and culture-oriented design was from abstract to concrete. The schema concept can be applied widely studied. The studies are mainly focusing on to both abstract concepts (e.g., justice and faith) and very transformation and application of cultural knowledge to concrete things (e.g., visual appearance) [14]. design [4][11][12]. On the other hand, it is apparent that Schema plays an important role in processing the culture possess important role on human cognitive and interaction between old knowledge (old information from a perception [13]. One theory that explains culture in generic schema) and new knowledge (episodic input) to cognitive level is schema theory, specifically cultural make sense of information. It refers to unconscious cognitive schema theory. However, cultural schema and its structures and processes that guide knowledge and skill, a application in design have not widely studied [5]. cognitive shortcut for interpreting and perceiving. The In light of recent development in design field where human mind constantly draws partial inferences from new designs are created with culture as inspiration, the incomplete information by fitting new information (episodic study of cultural schema and its application in design input) into the existing schema (generic schema). The become more relevant. While it could be argued that the cognitive processing of schema is largely unconscious and possession of cultural knowledge is enough to develop a automatic [8]. culture-based design, one should take into account the cognitive process of cultural schema that influence designer’s and user’ perception. It is widely accepted that culture in form of cultural schema is a major force in the process of perceiving and interpreting stimuli, and in turn producing meaning [5]. Therefore, it was hypothesized that since cultural schema shapes perception and guides interpretation, cultural schema posed both opportunity and constraint in production of meaning. Cultural schema is not only consist of cultural knowledge that serves as reference and inspiration in designing a culture-based design, but also the constraints posed by the cultural-specific perception and behavior. This study attempts to explain the role of schema, particularly cultural schema in developing culture-based design by developing framework of identification of the opportunities and constraints