Visual thinking, also called visual or spatial learning or picture thinking, is the phenomenon of thinking through
visual processing
Visual processing is a term that is used to refer to the brain's ability to use and interpret visual information from the world around us. The process of converting light energy into a meaningful image is a complex process that is facilitated by ...
. Visual thinking has been described as seeing words as a series of pictures. It is common in approximately 60–65% of the general population. "Real picture thinkers", those who use visual thinking almost to the exclusion of other kinds of thinking, make up a smaller percentage of the population. Research by child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words. According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be true "picture thinkers".
Non-verbal thought
Thinking in
mental image
A mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of 'perceiving' some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses. There are ...
s is one of a number of other recognized forms of non-verbal thought, such as
kinesthetic
Proprioception ( ), also referred to as kinaesthesia (or kinesthesia), is the sense of self-movement, force, and body position. It is sometimes described as the "sixth sense".
Proprioception is mediated by proprioceptors, mechanosensory neurons ...
, musical and mathematical thinking.
Learning styles
The acknowledgement and application of different cognitive and
learning styles
Learning styles refer to a range of theories that aim to account for differences in individuals' learning. Although there is ample evidence that individuals express personal preferences for how they prefer to receive information, few studies have ...
, including visual, kinesthetic, musical, mathematical and verbal thinking styles, are a common part of many current teacher training courses. Those who think in pictures have generally claimed to be best at visual learning.
Empirical research shows that there is no evidence that identifying a student's "learning style" produces better outcomes. There is significant evidence that the widespread "meshing hypothesis", the assumption that a student will learn best if taught in a method deemed appropriate for the student's learning style, is not fully studied in proper detail. “Of those that did use an appropriate method” of research, “several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis”.
Linguistics
A common assumption is that people think in language, and that language and thought influence each other.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...
studies how language is used and acquired.
The strong version of the
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis , the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people' ...
in
linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...
states that language determines thought, and that linguistic categories alone limit and determine cognitive categories. Although Whorf himself framed linguistic relativity in terms of "habits of mind" rather than determinism, the revolutionary nature of his hypothesis was met with much misinterpretation and criticism. In 1969, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay rejected the strong hypothesis using a
color terminology study.
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.
...
notes that we are not born with language, so that it is not likely that we are engineered to think in words alone.
Multiple intelligences
Gardner's multiple intelligences theory recognises various forms of intelligence, namely spatial, linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic. Gardner's theory is discussed and cited in many of David A Sousa's 'How the Brain learns' series of books, including 'How the Gifted Brain learns' and 'How the Special Needs Brain Learns'. Areas of competence may be reinforcing, but also mutually exclusive. In today's society the link between IQ and education has weakened, but the idea of educated and intelligent has become synonymous, interchangeable and reinforced by verbalizers being better able to internalize information, advocate systems and design jobs that monetarily reward strengths, a cycle that is self-perpetuating.
Split-brain research
According to
Roger Sperry
Roger Wolcott Sperry (August 20, 1913 – April 17, 1994) was an American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist, cognitive neuroscientist, and Nobel laureate who, together with David Hunter Hubel and Torsten Nils Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize i ...
the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere perform different tasks. The left and right hemisphere may be simultaneously conscious in different, even mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run in parallel. The right
on-verbalhemisphere perceives, thinks, remembers, reasons, wills and emotes, all at a characteristically human level.
Research which builds on Sperry's split brain research is reinforced by
anecdotal evidence, which supports the premise that different architectures lend themselves to one of the channels, at the expense of the others.
Spatial-temporal reasoning and spatial visualization ability
Spatial-temporal reasoning is the ability to visualize special patterns and mentally manipulate them over a time-ordered sequence of spatial transformations. Spatial visualization ability is the ability to manipulate mentally two- and three-dimensional figures.
Spatial-temporal reasoning is prominent among visual thinkers as well as among
kinesthetic learners (those who learn through movement, physical patterning and doing) and logical thinkers (mathematical thinkers who think in patterns and systems) who may not be strong visual thinkers at all.
Photographic memory
Eidetic memory
Eidetic memory ( ; more commonly called photographic memory or total recall) is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only onceThe terms ''eidetic memory'' and ''pho ...
(photographic memory) may co-occur in visual thinkers as much as in any type of thinking style as it is a memory function associated with having vision rather than a thinking style. Eidetic memory can still occur in those with visual
agnosia
Agnosia is the inability to process sensory information. Often there is a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss. It is usually ...
, who, unlike visual thinkers, may be limited in the use of visualization skills for mental reasoning.
Psychologist E.R Jaensch states that eidetic memory apart of visual thinking has to do with eidetic images fading between the line of the after image and the memory image. A fine relationship may exist between the after image and the memory image, which causes visual thinkers from not seeing the eidetic image but rather drawing upon perception and useful information. Individuals diagnosed with agnosia, may not be able to perform mental reasoning.
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) in teaching
VTS allows teachers to teach reading with the use of complex visuals, rather than the print and individual text forms used in the past.
Concurrency with dyslexia and autism
Dyslexia
Research suggests that dyslexia is a symptom of a predominant visual/spatial learning. Morgan used the term 'word blindness,' in 1896. Hinselwood expanded on 'word blindness' to describe the reversing of letters and similar phenomena in the 1900s. Orton suggested that individuals have difficulty associating the visual with the verbal form of words, in 1925. Further studies, using technologies (PET and MRI), and wider and varied user groups in various languages, support the earlier findings. Visual-spatial symptoms (
dyslexia,
developmental coordination disorder
Developmental coordination disorder (DCD), also known as developmental motor coordination disorder, developmental dyspraxia or simply dyspraxia from the word 'praxis' meaning to do or act, is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaire ...
,
auditory processing disorder (APD) and the like) arise in non-visual and non-spatial environments and situations; hence, visual/spatial learning is aggravated by an
education system
The educational system generally refers to the structure of all institutions and the opportunities for obtaining education within a country. It includes all pre-school institutions, starting from family education, and/or early childhood education ...
based upon information presented in
written text
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols.
Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...
instead of presented via
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...
and
hands-on experience.
Autism
Visual thinking has been argued by
Temple Grandin
Mary Temple Grandin (born August 29, 1947) is an American academic and animal behaviorist. She is a prominent proponent for the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and the author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior. Gra ...
to be an origin for delayed speech in people with
autism. It has been suggested that visual thinking has some necessary connection with autism. Functional imaging studies on people with autism have supported the hypothesis that they have a cognitive style that favors the use of visuospatial coding strategies.
Art and design education
![VISUAL THINKING manifesto a Torino](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/VISUAL_THINKING_manifesto_a_Torino.jpg)
Concepts related to visual thinking have played an important role in art and design education over the past several decades, but this has not always been the case. In Ancient Greece, Plato tended to place an emphasis on music to aid cognition in the education of heroes because of its mathematical tendencies and "harmonies of the cosmos". On the other hand, visual images, paintings in particular, caused the reliances on "illusionary images"
However, in the Western world, children begin primary school with abstract thought and shapes, but as we grow older, according to
Rudolf Arnheim
Rudolf Arnheim (July 15, 1904 – June 9, 2007) was a German-born writer, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and ap ...
, "arts are reduced to a desirable supplement"
The general world trend in the late twentieth century caused an emphases towards scientific, mathematical, and quantitative approach to education, and art education is often refuted because it is based on perception. It is qualitative and subjective which makes it difficult to measure and evaluate.
However, fundamentals in visual thinking lay the ground work for many design disciplines such as art and architecture. Two of the most influential aspects of visual composition in these disciplines are patterns and color. Patterns are not only prevalent in many different aspects of everyday life, but it is also telling about our interpretation of the world. In addition, there are now studied approaches to how color should be used in design where "the functional aesthetics of colour can be reduced to a small number of guidelines and lists the main properties needed to make design decisions leading to visual clarity".
At the same time, techniques in art and design can open up pathways to stimulate the thought process and problem solving. Sketches offer an unrestrained way to get thoughts down on paper through the "abstract representations of ideas and idea structures".
[ In this way, sketching not only helps to generate ideas, but also to reflect and edit them as well.] It is also an effective means of communication, especially for architects and engineers, for translating ideas from designer to client. Despite all the advantages of integrating art and visuals into education, it is a difficult skill to master. Those who can are well versed in visual analysis. It takes a lot of practice to have sketches evolve from "meaningless scribbles" to a complex "thinking tool".[
]
See also
*Aphantasia
Aphantasia ( , ) is the inability to create mental imagery.
The phenomenon was first described by Francis Galton in 1880 but has since remained relatively unstudied. Interest in the phenomenon renewed after the publication of a study in 2015 ...
*Concept map
A concept map or conceptual diagram is a diagram that depicts suggested relationships between concepts. Concept maps may be used by instructional designers, engineers, technical writers, and others to organize and structure knowledge.
A conc ...
*Image schema
An image schema (both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms) is a recurring structure within our cognitive processes which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning. As an understudy to embodied cognition, image schemas ...
*Intellectual giftedness
Intellectual giftedness is an intellectual ability significantly higher than average. It is a characteristic of children, variously defined, that motivates differences in school programming. It is thought to persist as a trait into adult life, wi ...
*Mental image
A mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of 'perceiving' some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses. There are ...
*Mind map
A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information into a hierarchy, showing relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated r ...
*New Epoch Notation Painting
Peter Benjamin Graham (4 June 1925 – 15 April 1987), was an Australian visual artist, printer, and art theorist.
In 1954, Graham began to explore native Australian wildlife (notably Kangaroos) and themes associated with Aboriginal culture, ...
*Picture dictionary
A picture dictionary or pictorial dictionary is a dictionary where the definition of a word is displayed in the form of a drawing or photograph. Picture dictionaries are useful in a variety of teaching environments, such as teaching a young child ...
* Rich pictures
*Rudolf Arnheim
Rudolf Arnheim (July 15, 1904 – June 9, 2007) was a German-born writer, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and ap ...
*Visual language
A visual language is a system of communication using visual elements. Speech as a means of communication cannot strictly be separated from the whole of human communicative activity which includes the visual and the term 'language' in relation to ...
References
Sources
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Further reading
* Rudolf Arnheim
Rudolf Arnheim (July 15, 1904 – June 9, 2007) was a German-born writer, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and ap ...
(1969), ''Visual Thinking''
* Robert McKim (1971), ''Experiences in Visual Thinking''
* Betty Edwards
Betty Edwards (born 1926 in San Francisco, California) is an American art teacher and author best known for her 1979 book ''Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain'' (, in its 4th edition). She taught and did research at the California State U ...
(1979), ''Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain''
* Thomas G. West (1997), ''The Minds Eye''
* Linda Silverman (2002), ''Upside Down Brilliance''
* Win Wenger (2004), ''The Einstein Factor''
External links
Visualspatial.org
Neural bases of exogenous versus endogenous visual spatial attention
LE VISUO-SPATIAL
(MIT) Do Humanities and Science Faculty Differ in Verbal & Visuospatial Working Memory Processes?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Visual Thinking
Dyslexia
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