Contextual Priming and the Design of 3D Virtual Environments to Improve Group Ideation

Akshay Bhagwatwar (), Anne Massey () and Alan Dennis ()
Additional contact information
Akshay Bhagwatwar: Amazon.com, Seattle, Washington 98121
Anne Massey: Operations and Information Management, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Alan Dennis: Operations and Decision Technologies, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405

Information Systems Research, 2018, vol. 29, issue 1, 169-185

Abstract: Three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments (VEs) are collaboration platforms where group members are represented as avatars and interact in a customizable simulated world. Research from cognitive psychology has shown that it is possible to manipulate nonconscious cognition and behavior through “priming,” a well-known phenomenon in which words and images are used to activate desired concepts in participants’ minds. Our goal in this was to investigate whether priming during the task execution (called contextual priming) using 3D objects in the VE can improve brainstorming performance. To investigate this, we conducted two studies. The first used priming objects specifically related to the task topic and the second used priming objects related to creativity, in general. Compared to VEs without 3D priming objects, our results show that when groups brainstormed in the VEs designed with 3D priming objects, they generated better quality ideas as well as a greater breadth and depth of ideas. Thus, the 3D priming stimuli incorporated in a VE enhances brainstorming, which indicates that the design of VE has a direct effect on team brainstorming performance. Our results also show that target concept activation and task absorption act as the underlying mechanisms, partially mediating the relationship between the design of the VE (i.e., the presence or absence of priming objects) and performance outcomes.

Keywords: virtual environments; group collaboration; groups; priming; electronic brainstorming; idea generation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/isre.2017.0721 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orisre:v:29:y:2018:i:1:p:169-185

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Systems Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().