Conceptual viewpoints on mental imagery in product design engineering: a framework for researching mental imagery in design cognition

Mental imagery is the experience of perceiving an object within one’s own mind and is a subjective experience, leading to difficulties in the research and understanding of the phenomenon. This paper shows and verifies the development of a framework for researching the elements of mental imagery. The framework was developed following a review of both psychology and design literature which signified three fundamental conceptual viewpoints of mental imagery: imagery modalities, dimensions of imagery ability, and imagery processes. The aim of this framework is to allow for structured research on mental imagery in any given field. This is verified through discussion in this paper for the product design engineering discipline and provides a base for future work on this topic. The conclusions made in this paper show that while mental imagery, and particularly visual mental imagery, is largely considered to be integral in design, this overlooks the different realities of designers, and confirms a greater need for understanding mental imagery experiences in product design engineering.