Variances in the impact of visual stimuli on design problem solving performance

Research in cognitive psychology and in design thinking has shown that the generation of inner representations in imagery and external representations via sketching are instrumental in design problem solving. In this paper we focus on another facet of visual representation in design: the ‘consumption’ of external visual representations, regarded as stimuli, when those are present in the designer's work environment. An empirical study revealed that the presence of visual stimuli of different kinds can affect performance, measured in terms of practicality, originality and creativity scores attained by designs developed by subjects under different conditions. The findings suggest that the effect of stimuli is contingent on the type of the design problem that is being solved.