Technowize Magazine - August 2016

In this issue

In the1960s, American psychologist Harry Harlow conducted a series of experiments which involved separating infant rhesus monkeys from their mother’s just hours after birth. Each infant was given a choice between two dummy mothers. One was made of wire and held a milk bottle; another was covered in synthetic fur to resemble a real money but provided no food. Harlow assumed the monkeys would gravitate towards the mother surrogate which gave them a basic need: sustenance. Much to his surprise, the monkeys preferred their realistic looking cloth surrogate mother for comfort and security, and would only select the metal wire mother when they needed food. Harlow’s experiments fleshed out “form, function, feeling,” by American architect Louis Sullivan, the core of modern human design principles. Form and function have become universal concepts, but there’s a third, more subtle factor at play in design: feeling.
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