Mental images and digital models in architecture

Technological innovation in architecture concerns the construction phase but also a vast digital instrumental apparatus that has a direct impact on the whole design process, starting from the very beginning, at a cognitive level. Research on the design process can no longer disregard the increasingly prominent role of digital tools and must reflect critically on the mind as the system that emerges from the interaction of the architect’s brain, body, and digital tools. Within the framework of the extended mind theory and its subsequent developments, we propose a discussion of the role of mental imagery in the design process; in particular, in the interaction with digital tools. The analogy between mental imagery and multisenso- rial perception is now demonstrated thanks to discoveries in neuroscientific research that confirm some of the many philo- sophical theories developed throughout history. This aspect is especially relevant in the design process because it means that through mental imagery, if used actively, the architect can con- vey in the project data related to the multisensorial and embod- ied experience of space, which can become design material. We will proceed in the paper with the discussion of three critical aspects of the interaction between mental imagery and some specific digital tools, namely the retrieval of motor and multi- sensory stimuli, the relationship between imagining the whole and the parts of the architectural space, the interplay between precision and vagueness. Some of these reflections were taken as hypotheses that we aimed to verify through two experimen- tal studies conducted in collaboration with psychologists and neurophysiologists. The first study collected first-person data from 90 undergraduate students and the second, which is now underway, aims to assess the visual cognitive styles and abilities of professional architects as well as the neural correlates using electroencephalography. We will report and discuss the results of both studies.