Linkography entropy measurement and analysis of different conditioned design sessions

This paper uses Shannon's entropy of information to measure linkographs of twelve design sessions which involved six architects in two separate design processes. In one they were not allowed to sketch (blindfolded condition), and in the other they were allowed to sketch. A previous study showed that the architects' overall cognitive activity in the blindfolded condition dropped below their activity in the sketching condition, approximately after 20 minutes (half way) during the timeline of the design sessions. This drop in performance was explained by higher cognitive demands and limitations of visuo-spatial working memory in the blindfolded conditions. Assuming that moves in a linkograph are the manifestation of ideas and entropy indicates the idea development potential, we tested whether entropy of idea links would also drop after half way during the blindfolded sessions. The results show that the visuo- spatial working memory load does not have negative effects on idea development. Further, we discuss that the idea development could be dependent more on a conceptual modality than the visuo-spatial modality.