Collective cognition · OSF-COG-006
Cognitive State Dynamics Model (ICSD): a state-based view of innovation
By Carlos J. Pérez Pulido · ISHEA Institute ·
A theory of innovation as a cognitive phase transition: joining the EICI criterion to the TACC cycle, it distinguishes four internal regimes an organization can occupy before it innovates.
Preprint — Manuscript deposited on OSF. Not peer-reviewed.
A state-based theoretical framework modeling innovation as a cognitive phase transition. ICSD integrates the EICI coherence criterion and the TACC cycle to identify four internal cognitive regimes — generative coherence (Δ+1), threshold state (CI=0), collapse (Δ−1), and hyperdiffuse — and proposes a complementary internal layer to existing environmental frameworks in organizational innovation theory.
This position paper introduces the Cognitive State Dynamics Model (ICSD), a state-based framework that reconceptualizes innovation as an emergent property of internal cognitive system dynamics. ICSD proposes a framework for understanding innovation not as a linear output process, but as a transition between evolving internal states governed by coherence, entropy, and external constraint pressure.
At the core of ICSD lies the integration of the EICI + TACC architecture. The TACC cycle (Thinking–Assimilation–Creation–Checking), originally developed in Pérez Pulido (2026d), defines the temporal processing dynamics of cognitive states. EICI governs the coupling between external constraint pressure and internal coherence formation.
The framework identifies four cognitive state regimes: Δ+1 (generative coherence), CI=0 (threshold oscillation — the organizational signature of the flat curve), Δ−1 (collapse), and the hyperdiffuse state (entropy-dominated, innovation theatre).
ICSD is intended as a complementary layer rather than an alternative to environmental innovation frameworks. It proposes the internal counterpart to models such as IDEA Flow (El Hadi, 2026), psychological safety theory (Edmondson, 1999), and exploration-exploitation theory (March, 1991) — providing the generative mechanism that explains why enabling conditions work when they work, and why they fail when the internal cognitive state has collapsed.
Keywords: cognitive state dynamics; organizational innovation; EICI; TACC cycle; coherence-entropy balance; metastable generative regime; complex systems; creative cognition.
Author: Carlos J. Pérez Pulido — Founder & Director of Research, ISHEA Institute. ORCID: 0009-0004-1822-4798. OSF Mother Project: 10.17605/OSF.IO/4K9JZ
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