Imagery and the Design Process. Suggestions for the Development of CAD-Systems

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the characterization of mental images and their importance in problem solving, especially for engineering design. Mental images are not just static units but dynamic ones. Unlike perceptions, they can almost deliberately be manipulated and permit operations that cannot be conducted with their real counterparts. Moreover, in problem solving they enable us to simulate certain events—for example, the movements of different parts of a device relative to one another. Reviewing their characteristics, both representational formats seem to be complementary to one another. First of all, one representation can activate another one by association (e.g. the word “dog” calls up the mental image of a dog). Furthermore, the different types of representations can be used for specific goals: verbal representations can be used to isolate individual elements out of a mental image or to restructure the constellation; mental images, on the other hand, can be used to accumulate information or to test hypotheses by carrying out some kind of mental transformation. Finally, the suggestions for the development of CAD systems are developed in the chapter.