How do designers “think” with “things?"

It’s worth going out of your way to visualize a problem, even for people who don’t like to draw. This paper explains four ways visualization helps people understand how to solve a problem: reinterpret by removing constraints, prioritize what matters through abstraction, combine multiple sources, and borrow structures from elsewhere. For example, physical rearranging is one way to reinterpret—imagine children using tiles to solve a fraction problem or moving around letters in Scrabble.

This behavior-focused study suggests physical exploring may aid in creative work. The study observed 31 student artists completing a still life drawing work with no time constraints. The study finds that “discovery-oriented behaviors”–like observing a variety of objects and picking them up—are linked with “originality” ratings in the final product.

The paper explains three types of perception and understanding: social cognition, embodied cognition, and cognition and culture. These are the three principles underpinning distributed cognition: the relationship between things around us and how we think. This paper suggests that the two are deeply related, requiring “coordination at many different time scales between internal resources—memory, attention, executive function—and external resources—the objects, artifacts, and at-hand materials constantly surrounding us.”