Bechthold, MartinUgarte Urzua, Juan Pablo2023-11-1520232023-11-142023-11Ugarte Urzua, Juan Pablo. 2023. The Oculomotor Correlates of Exploratory Model Making: A Mixed-Methods Eye Tracking Study. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard Graduate School of Design.30691669https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37377376In this thesis, I take a post-cognitivist view of design and use eye-tracking to study the oculomotor behavior of architects during different exploratory model-making activities. My interest is to determine to what extent eye movements may yield a useful low-level, fine-grained understanding of design cognition in exploratory model making. I do this by designing and conducting a mixed-methods, observational exploratory eye-tracking study. The study consists of a series of block assembly tasks that are increasingly complex from a design standpoint. I develop a multi-tier coding scheme and propose original metrics that link eye movements, hand motoric action, and design operations together. By doing so, I show the unique opportunities that eye-tracking methods offer to the understanding of design cognition in exploratory model making ;furthermore, I outline a set of preliminary hypotheses about the role of eye movements in exploratory model making to inform future research in this topic.application/pdfencreativityembodied cognitioneye trackingmodel makingArchitectureDesignComputer scienceThesis or Dissertation2023-11-150009-0004-3818-0761