Download - Visual Thinking--Review Michael Mills Stanford Center for Innovation in Learning April 3, 2003
Visual thinking--Arnheim
What is the relationship between seeing and reasoning?
Is seeing itself a kind of problem-solving?
Are there close ties between art and science? Between sensory experience and abstract thought?
Does productive thought take place in the realm of imagery?
How can images support thinking and learning?
-Precursor of Information Visualization-Design Principles of for Informative Displays
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Gestalt approach to perception
Gestalt means pattern--whole more than sum of parts
Mind is NOT a Tabula Rasa formed by associationsWertheimer, Kohler, Arnheim
Mind imposes patterns on the visual field
Operates by organization principles
- “force fields” and dynamics
Aesthetics implicit in perceptual organization
Brain organizes visual field according to simplest possible organization
Gestalt laws win over experience and learning--Camouflage
Stroboscopic Motion (Phi)
See motion streak although not occurring in the visual field.
Proof that brain imposes organization.-“short circuit” in neurons
similarity
proximity
brightness
speed
size
orientation
continuity
common fate
Gestalt Grouping “Laws”
Pictures, Symbols and Signs
Images Abstract forces
PracticalThings
Images can be used to picture the way things appear in the real world…
…or symbolically to give visible shape to patterns of forces
Images regard the world in two opposite directions
3 Functions of Images
Not kinds of images, but FUNCTIONS they serve.
What is the communicative intent?
Picture, Symbol and Sign
SIGN of Danger
SYMBOL of Hierarchy
PICTURE of a mountain
SIGNS
Image used as a sign when it stands for specific content without trying to portray its appearance
Relation between image and referent is associative, arbitrary
Effective signs evoke underlying structural qualities and forces
“Danger”
PICTURES
Images used as a picture when used to portray things at a lower level of abstraction than itself
Picture grasps relevant aspects of natural features of objects in the real world
A picture is not merely a replica -editing, selection
“Mountain”
PICTURES
Picture can exist at different levels of abstractness
Involves selection and interpretation -- not just realistic portrayalNot just asking perceiver to “fill in”
Pictorial interpretation concerned with generic qualities
Formal, structural qualities reinforce abstract forces
SYMBOLS
“Hierarchy”
Referent is at a higher level of abstraction than the image itself
Gives visible shape to abstract forces, ideas…
SYMBOLS
Referent is at a higher level of abstraction than the image itself
Gives visible shape to abstract forces, ideas…
LOW
HIGH
Rich sensory record
Foregrounding relevant features
Describing, indexing, coding
Discovering formal
Relations
Formalisms
Powerful tool for analysis and visualization of human activity in real-world places
Visualization in DIVER