Visual discovery in mind and on paper

The effectiveness of mental imagery with and without drawing support (perceptual assistance) in the visual synthesis of novel patterns was studied in three experiments. When the task was to create one recognizable pattern from three simple shapes in a 2-min assembly period, subjects were as likely to produce a recognizable or creative pattern per trial whether mental imagery was augmented by external drawing support or not. When the task was to create as many patterns as possible in a 3-min assembly period, more patterns were produced per trial with external drawing support than without; however, neither the recognizability nor the creativity of the patterns differed. Differences in performance in the visual synthesis task with and without external drawing support are interpreted in terms of limited cognitive resources.