Sketches of Creative Discovery. A Psychological Inquiry into the Role of Imageryand Sketching in Creative Discovery

摘要

Until now, paper and pencil sketching has been discussed predominantly amongthose who are themselves actively engaged in sketching, such as industrial designers and architects. An alternative approach is taken in this dissertation. The proposed approach draws heavily on an understanding of processing in mental imagery. Some imagery processes are easy to perform and others are hard, and sketching is used to compensate for the hard ones. This conclusion could be drawn as the result of two experimental studies, presented in this dissertation. This conclusion connects the phenomena of sketching to the field of mental imagery, creativity, and discovery and may add some new insights to these domains. Two of the three chapters in-between contain experimental studies; the third is a case study of a creative process by an artist, the Dutch abstract painter Paul Kleijne.