Fashion Psychology｜Why Do Fashion Design Students Find Clo3D Hard to Use?

Analysis from a neuropsychological perspective

Published in

Section 12

6 min readJun 13, 2023

As a fashion design student, I struggled with learning Clo3D. I was curious if other students faced similar challenges, so I made a poll on my Instagram account to see what my classmates thought of it. The results are quite surprising: only 6% of them enjoy drawing patterns with computer software (Clo3D), and 94% of them prefer drawing patterns with their hands. Why is that?

During my research, I came across a study that looked at how the structure of a London taxi driver’s brain changes after 2–4 years of training, and how this affects their visual and spatial information processing.

The finding makes me wonder: Are fashion design students at Shih Chien University similar to London taxi drivers? Is there a biological reason why students find Clo3D hard to use?

The Original Paper: London taxi drivers and bus drivers: A structural MRI and neuropsychological analysis

▍Introduction

Taxi drivers in London need to undergo extensive training, called ‘The Knowledge,’ for 2–4 years to obtain an operating license. In order to pass the strict exams at the Public Carriage Office, this training includes learning the layout of the city’s more than 25,000 streets and thousands of tourist attractions.

▍Methodology

In a nutshell, this study compares two groups: taxi drivers and bus drivers. Both groups need to drive in busy London while dealing with customers at the same time. However, in contrast to taxi drivers, who navigate throughout the city, bus drivers follow the same routes every day and only take formal training for about six weeks.

By examining the brains of both groups with MRI before and after training, the researchers could determine whether the volume of gray matter in the hippocampal region has a significant effect on spatial memory. In addition, neuropsychological tests have been conducted to access a range of basic cognitive, memory, and affective functions.

The following hypotheses are stated:

The gray matter volume remains the same.
If there were no differences in hippocampal gray matter volume between taxi and bus drivers, it would imply that earlier differences were the result of non-spatial factors.
The gray matter volume changes.
If other factors (self-motion, driving, and stress) are considered, there are still differences in gray matter between taxi and bus drivers. This suggests that the volume of gray matter in the hippocampi may change depending on how much spatial memory is used to navigate large-scale space.

▍Findings

Maguire et al. (2006) discovered that after 2–4 years of training, London taxi drivers had more gray matter volume in their mid-posterior hippocampi and less gray matter volume in their anterior hippocampi.

In terms of performance, taxi drivers outperformed bus drivers in identifying London landmarks and knowing their proximal relationships. Taxi drivers, on the other hand, performed worse in terms of acquiring or retrieving new visual and spatial information.

This study also indicates that the correlations between gray matter volume and the number of years of taxi driving were significant. On the contrary, the delayed recall of ROCFT correlates negatively with years of experience as a taxi driver. This shows that ‘time’ is an important factor in this study.

Note: In neuropsychology, the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (ROCFT) is one of the most common tests of spatial memory. In this study, taxi drivers performed significantly worse than bus drivers on the delayed recall of the ROCFT.

▍Discussion

These findings indicate that one of the primary functions of the human hippocampus is to learn, represent, and navigate a large and complicated environment. Furthermore, the structure of the hippocampus may change to accommodate its development even in adulthood.

The anterior hippocampal has been associated with retrieval, such as successful navigation in well-known environments, while the posterior hippocampal has been associated with novel stimuli, such as mastering the layout of a new virtual environment (Wolbers and Buchel, 2005).

In several other groups, such as musicians, jugglers, and bilinguals, similar findings of change that appear to be influenced by the environment have been reported (Munte et al., 2002; Gaser and Schlaug, 2003; Mechelli et al., 2004). Positive correlations between gray matter, learning time, and specialisation practice have also been discovered in these groups. For instance, the more time professional musicians spend practising and playing, the more gray matter grows in their motor areas, auditory areas, and frontal region (Gaser and Schlaug, 2003; Sluming et al., 2002).

▍Reflecting on the Brain of Fashion Design Student

Fashion design students at Shih Chien University have similar conditions as taxi drivers in London.

Time-wise: Fashion design students have been trained manually for four years in patternmaking and draping.
Task-wise: Fashion design is a subject that includes both visual and spatial elements (Eckert & Stacey, 2001). Following the creation of a sketch (visual factor), designers need to figure out the structure of the garment on the human body (spatial factor).
Training-wise: Fashion design students receive intensive training in making trousers, skirts, and blazers in a short period of time to meet the graduation criterion, which includes the entire process from drawing to sewing pieces together. This may be seen as similar to the training that London taxi drivers received.
Facing the same difficulties: The poll shows that 94% of students prefer drawing patterns with their hands, while only 6% prefer drawing patterns with computer software. That is, most students find computer software hard to learn and difficult to operate.

Therefore, based on the study of London taxi drivers, we may speculate on the potential reasons why fashion design students find Clo3D hard to operate.

Based on similar conditions as taxi drivers in London, we may hypothesise that after four years of intensive training, the hippocampus of fashion design students may change to accommodate its development. Similar to the hippocampus structure of a taxi driver, the mid-posterior hippocampi may have more gray matter volume, while the anterior hippocampi may have less gray matter volume.

This hypothesis may lead to the conclusion that as the anterior hippocampal shrinks, the ability to receive novel stimuli in the visuospatial system may diminish. That is, Clo3D could be viewed as a new visuospatial stimulus for students, with which they may struggle.

Note: This conclusion can be viewed as a hypothesis that requires further investigation to confirm.

What is the Hippocampus?

Copyright © Society for Neuroscience (2017).

The term ‘hippocampus’ comes from the Greek word for ‘sea horse,’ due to the structure of its shape. It is known for learning, memory, spatial navigation, emotional behaviour, and the regulation of hypothalamic functions (Anand & Dhikav, 2012). In this article, among all the functions, we only focus on spatial memory.

▍References

Main Resource: Maguire, E. A., Woollett, K., & Spiers, H. J. (2006). London taxi drivers and bus drivers: a structural MRI and neuropsychological analysis. Hippocampus, 16(12), 1091–1101.

Anand, K. S., & Dhikav, V. (2012). Hippocampus in health and disease: An overview. Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology, 15(4), 239–246. https://doi.org/10.4103/0972-2327.104323

Eckert, C. M., & Stacey, M. K. (2001). Designing in context: Proceedings of the 5th design thinking research symposium. Delft University Press. http://www.dupress.nl/book/designing-in-context/

Wolbers, T., & Büchel, C. (2005). Dissociable retrosplenial and hippocampal contributions to successful formation of survey representations. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 25(13), 3333–3340. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4705-04.2005

Münte, T. F., Altenmüller, E., & Jäncke, L. (2002). The musician’s brain as a model of neuroplasticity. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 3(6), 473–478. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn843

Gaser, C., & Schlaug, G. (2003). Brain structures differ between musicians and non-musicians. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 23(27), 9240–9245. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.23-27-09240.2003

Mechelli, A., Crinion, J., Noppeney, U. et al. Structural plasticity in the bilingual brain. Nature 431, 757 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/431757a

Sluming, V., Barrick, T., Howard, M., Cezayirli, E., Mayes, A., & Roberts, N. (2002). Voxel-based morphometry reveals increased gray matter density in Broca’s area in male symphony orchestra musicians. NeuroImage, 17(3), 1613–1622. https://doi.org/10.1006/nimg.2002.1288

Eckert, C. M., & Stacey, M. K. (2001, December). Designing in the context of fashion–designing the fashion context. In Designing in context: Proceedings of the 5th design thinking research symposium (pp. 113–129).