This paper presents the methodology and results of a pilot study comparing the eye movements of architecture students when looking at different modalities of digital spatial representation. The two participant groups consisted of third and fourth year undergraduate architecture students from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA and from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China. The two modalities studied were a computer-generated line drawn perspective and a digitized photograph of the same architectural space. The results of this study show that student designers’ physiological response varies with different representation modalities.