Visual thinking
From Free net encyclopedia
Picture thinking, visual thinking or visual/spatial learning is the phenomenon of thinking through visual processing, where most people would think with linguistic or verbal processing. It is nonlinear and often has the nature of a computer simulation, in the sense that a lot of data is put through a process to yield insight into complex systems, which would be impossible through language alone.
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Information processing in visual thinking
Thinking visually is often associated with the right half of the brain. The visual-spatial learner model is based on the newest discoveries in brain research about the different functions of the hemispheres. The left hemisphere is sequential, analytical, and time-oriented. The right hemisphere perceives the whole, synthesizes, and apprehends movement in space.
Picture thinking could be called "non-linguistic thinking," and people who do such information processing could be called "visual thinkers". It involves thinking beyond the definitions of language and has many personal referents to meaning which cannot be translated.
Picture thinking involves different categorization than verbal or linguistic processing. Linguistic thinking involves categorization of thought in defined, linear forms. It is serial, and it concentrates on detailed parts in the stimulus. Visual thinking involves categorization which is parallel and holistic. Though linguistic thinkers often feel that visual-thinkers concentrate on detail, in fact this occurs because of the extreme memory of picture thinkers. Much of the thinking of children in the preoperational stage (2-7 years of age) is visual. It is hypothesized that autistic people get stuck at this stage of information processing.
Dimensions of picture thinkers
In psychology, picture thinking is often confused with dyslexia, and it is true that people who 'think in pictures' often have difficulty with learning to read, but not all picture thinkers suffer from the normal symptoms associated with dyslexia. Some autistics think in pictures.
Symptoms that most picture thinkers do share are:
- Thinking with the meaning of language in terms of multidimesional scenarios of the ideas and concepts, as opposed to the sound of language.
- Thinking at a subliminal rate of 32 concepts per second, as opposed to the 6-7 words per second experienced by typical verbal-sequential thinkers, thus appearing to intuitively come to conclusions that are very hard to reach by using typical linear reasoning.
- Problems remembering abstract chains of letters, like names.
- Difficulty in explaining concepts they have invented.
- Writing in a very convoluted style.
- Natural ability to 'quick read' whole sentences instead of word for word, but when asked to read out loud what they have read they often use other words than what is actually written.
- Ability to remember exactly the location and relative position of objects they have placed somewhere.
- Difficulty gauging time as it passes.
Characteristics of visual thinking
What a picture thinker is or does is still debated, but some research has been done in the Netherlands where picture thinking is called beelddenken. In particular, the Maria J. Krabbe Stichting is doing research (see link below). Researchers there have developed a method of detecting picture thinking in young children by using the so called "the world game" (het wereldspel).
Picture thinkers, as the name indicates, think in pictures, not in the linear fashion using language that is normally associated with thinking. Of course this is a simplification as a complete picture thinker would not be able to use language.
Picture thinkers can come to conclusions in an intuitive way, without reasoning with language. Instead, they manipulate with logical/graphical symbols in a non linear fashion; they “see” the answers to problems.
Picture thinkers are often inventors, architects or electronic engineers.
The book The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald D. Davis and Eldon M.Braun describes the relationship of picture thinking to dyslexia. Another book, Thinking in Pictures, by Temple Grandin, focuses on the role of picture thinking in autism.
A mixed blessing
Although picture thinking offers many unique capabilities, in practice many picture thinkers have had a hard time adapting to the demands of a world with predominantly linguistic thinkers.
In the Netherlands most of the teachers are slowly becoming aware of the unique problems picture thinkers face, and are starting to recognize these children. This is important because these children need extra help with some of their lessons, and an understanding of the challenges these children face helps to give them the right kind of support.
List of people with visual processing
There are many famous people who are/were probably picture thinkers, here is a short list:
- Nikola Tesla was a Serbian inventor and physicist: discussed in depth picture thinking in his seminal document The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, his abilities including operating fully functional models in his mind, may possibly have had Asperger's syndrome;
- Temple Grandin is an associate professor at Colorado State University, professional designer of humane livestock facilities, and arguably the most accomplished and well-known adult with 'high functioning' autism.
Furthermore verbal thought is not of primordial help for people who are specialised in professions requiring instant visualisation such as air traffic controllers or detectives, or other professions requiring quick links and spacial awareness such as architects, engineers, and many artistical branches using pictures of the eyes and the ears.
References
- Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner; by Linda Silverman, Ph.D.
- In the Mind's Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People With Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity; by Thomas G. West
External links
- visualspatial.org
- Thinking with Pictures is highly visual model mapping software for children running on MS Windows.
- Maria J. Krabbe Stichting (in Dutch)
- Autism and Visual Thought
- The Gift of Dyslexia
- "The problem of Increasing human energy" - Tesla's essay on the working of his mind, and other subjects.