Visualizing Thought: Topics in Cognitive Science(2010)

doi:10.1111/J.1756-8765.2010.01113.X

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Visualizing Thought: Topics in Cognitive Science(2010)

Journal Article•DOI•

Visualizing Thought: Topics in Cognitive Science(2010)

01 Jul 2011-Topics in Cognitive Science (Wiley)-Vol. 3, Iss: 3, pp 499-535

TL;DR: Analyzing common visual communications reveals consistencies that illuminate how people think as well as guide design; the process can be brought into the laboratory and accelerated.

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Abstract: Depictive expressions of thought predate written language by thousands of years. They have evolved in communities through a kind of informal user testing that has refined them. Analyzing common visual communications reveals consistencies that illuminate how people think as well as guide design; the process can be brought into the laboratory and accelerated. Like language, visual communications abstract and schematize; unlike language, they use properties of the page (e.g., proximity and place: center, horizontal/up-down, vertical/left-right) and the marks on it (e.g., dots, lines, arrows, boxes, blobs, likenesses, symbols) to convey meanings. The visual expressions of these meanings (e.g., individual, category, order, relation, correspondence, continuum, hierarchy) have analogs in language, gesture, and especially in the patterns that are created when people design the world around them, arranging things into piles and rows and hierarchies and arrays, spatial-abstraction-action interconnections termed spractions. The designed world is a diagram.

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Book Chapter•DOI•

Multimedia in Learning

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Alfred Bork¹, Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir•Institutions (1)

University of California, Irvine¹

01 Jan 2001

TL;DR: A wide variety of media can be used in learning, including distance learning, such as print, lectures, conference sections, tutors, pictures, video, sound, and computers.

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Abstract: A wide variety of media can be used in learning, including distance learning, such as print, lectures, conference sections, tutors, pictures, video, sound, and computers. Any one instance of distance learning will make choices among these media, perhaps using several.

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2,940 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Drawing to Learn in Science.

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Shaaron Ainsworth¹, Vaughan Prain², Russell Tytler³•Institutions (3)

University of Nottingham¹, La Trobe University², Deakin University³

26 Aug 2011-Science

TL;DR: Drawing should be explicitly recognized as a key element in science education and science learners be challenged to draw more.

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Abstract: Should science learners be challenged to draw more? Certainly making visualizations is integral to scientific thinking. Scientists do not use words only but rely on diagrams, graphs, videos, photographs, and other images to make discoveries, explain findings, and excite public interest. From the notebooks of Faraday and Maxwell ( 1 ) to current professional practices of chemists ( 2 ), scientists imagine new relations, test ideas, and elaborate knowledge through visual representations ( 3 – 5 ).

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Journal Article•DOI•

Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols

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Annette Barnes, Nelson Goodman

21 Jan 1971-Perspectives of New Music

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Book•DOI•

Diagrammatic Representation and Inference

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Kim Marriott¹, Atsushi Shimojima, Alan F. Blackwell•Institutions (1)

Edinburgh College of Art¹

01 Mar 2004-Lecture Notes in Computer Science

TL;DR: This paper aims at understanding the nature of Peirce’s graphical method and its implications to philosophy of logic.

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Abstract: The beauty of logical graphs consists in many facets, including notational simplicity, multi-modality and normativity. This paper aims at understanding the nature of Peirce’s graphical method and its implications to philosophy of logic.

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260 citations

Cites background or methods from "Visualizing Thought: Topics in Cogn..."

...As a third example, we look at the following representation from [23] (Fig....
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...The use of a decomposition in Euler diagram generation is not new [21,23], but the order of curve label removal can have a profound impact on the effectiveness of the final diagram, as can the method used to draw the curves....
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...On the contrary, it is a common thesis among historians and philosophers that the objects of Euclidean geometry are quasi-empirical [12, 16, 17, 19, 30] and that not all abstract objects and universals lack sensible features akin to those of everyday concrete objects [11, 13, 15, 23, 33, 34, 37, 38]....
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...Russell’s distinction between Relation Symbols and Object Symbols [23] identifies “words which mean relations are not themselves relations, but just as substantial or insubstantial as other words....
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..., [22,23]) could be adapted to support the unique needs of scientists as designers....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Metaphors We Live by

[...]

John M. Lawler, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson

01 Mar 1983-Language

TL;DR: Lakoff and Johnson as discussed by the authors present a very attractive book for linguists to read, which is written in a direct and accessible style; while it introduces and uses a number of new terms, for the most part it is free of jargon.

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Abstract: Every linguist dreams of the day when the intricate variety of human language will be a commonplace, widely understood in our own and other cultures; when we can unlock the secrets of human thought and communication; when people will stop asking us how many languages we speak. This day has not yet arrived; but the present book brings it somewhat closer. It is, to begin with, a very attractive book. The publishers deserve a vote of thanks for the care that is apparent in the physical layout, typography, binding, and especially the price. Such dedication to scholarly publication at prices which scholars can afford is meritorious indeed. We may hope that the commercial success of the book will stimulate them and others to similar efforts. It is also a very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating book which raises, and occasionally answers, a number of important linguistic questions. It is written in a direct and accessible style; while it introduces and uses a number of new terms, for the most part it is free of jargon. This is no doubt part of its appeal to nonlinguists, though linguists should also find it useful and provocative. It even has possibilities as a textbook. Lakoff and Johnson state their aims and claims forthrightly at the outset (p. 3):

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7,812 citations

"Visualizing Thought: Topics in Cogn..." refers background in this paper

...Many of these metaphorically spatial concepts are evident in spatial language: Someone is at the top of the class, another has fallen into a depression, friends grow close or apart; a field is wide open, a topic is central to a debate (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson, 1980)....
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...…is evident in a broad range of gestures and linguistic expressions across cultures and has a basis in the nature of the world and the things in it, including ourselves (e.g., Clark, 1973; Cooper & Ross, 1975; Franklin & Tversky, 1990; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Talmy, 1983, 2000; Tversky, 2001)....
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...…some more literal, some more metaphorical, so that they have parallels in other ways of using space as well, in words, in actions, and in gesture, in the virtual space created by gesture and the mental space created by words (e.g., Gattis, 2004; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Tversky et al., 2009)....
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Book•

Envisioning Information

[...]

Edward R. Tufte¹•Institutions (1)

Yale University¹

01 Jan 1990

3,631 citations

Additional excerpts

...…them, and to ripple across domains (e.g., Arnheim, 1974; Bertin, 1981; Card, Mackinlay, & Shneiderman, 1999; Elkin, 1999; Gombrich, 1961; Goodman, 1978; Kulvicki, 2006; McCloud, 1994; Murch, 2001; Small, 1997; Stafford, 2007; Wainer, 1992; Ware, 2008; Winn, 1987; Tufte, 1983, 1990, 1997)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Why a Diagram is (Sometimes) Worth Ten Thousand Words

[...]

Jill H. Larkin¹, Herbert A. Simon¹•Institutions (1)

Carnegie Mellon University¹

03 Jan 1987-Cognitive Science

TL;DR: This work describes systems that are informationally equivalent and that can be characterized as sentential or diagrammatic, and contrasts the computational efficiency of these representotions for solving several illustrative problems in mothematics and physics.

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3,237 citations

Journal Article•

How to ... be a reflective practitioner.

[...]

Hoban

01 Jan 2004-Nursing times

3,099 citations

"Visualizing Thought: Topics in Cogn..." refers background in this paper

...Designers use their sketches in a kind of conversation: They sketch, reexamine the sketch, and revise (Schon, 1983)....
[...]
...Sketches in early phases of design even of physical objects, like products and buildings, are frequently just glyphs, lines and blobs, with no specific shapes, sizes, or distances (e.g., Goel, 1995; Schon, 1983)....
[...]

Book Chapter•DOI•

Multimedia in Learning

[...]

Alfred Bork¹, Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir•Institutions (1)

University of California, Irvine¹

01 Jan 2001

TL;DR: A wide variety of media can be used in learning, including distance learning, such as print, lectures, conference sections, tutors, pictures, video, sound, and computers.

...read moreread less

2,940 citations