A Study of a Neglected Portion of the Field of Learning—the Development of Sensory Organization

The trade-off between design fixation and quality: Physical objects or multiperspective pictures?

Physical objects and their pictures are two main kinds of design stimuli of creative activity, which can improve design quality but may induce design fixation. Previous studies are focused on the case where participants face a single picture, and their design stimulus may be incomplete as compared with the participants facing objects. To fully explore the influence of physical and pictorial examples on design novices, we investigated design fixation and design quality when they were provided with multiperspective pictures having information remarkably similar to physical objects. Specifically, two novice groups individually created their own designs after observing several examples by the way of the above two presentation modes. These designs were evaluated by two evaluators in terms of similarity, originality, and completeness. Statistical analysis showed that no significant difference was found in similarity and originality between the two groups, whereas the designs of the physical group outperformed those of the pictorial group in terms of completeness. This finding indicated that the two groups showed the same degree of design fixation, as multiperspective pictures presented most of the form information of the physical object. The results suggest that when instructing design novices, it is essential to control how to present design examples at different stages of the design process.

The role of object-hypotheses in the organization of fragmented figures

The effect of an object-hypothesis on the organization of fragmented figures was investigated by varying instruction given prior to stimulus presentation. One group was uninformed as to the possibility of seeing a figure; a second group was instructed that it is possible to see a meaningful object; a third group was further instructed as to which class of object was presented. It was found that, in order to achieve organization of fragmented figures, the observer must have knowledge that a meaningful object may be integrated from the fragments. Knowledge of the class of object, while increasing the likelihood of recognition, does not significantly decrease search time.