Dear Kevin:

More than cause and effect, I suppose that visual thinking, language, communication, perception, and learning are all part of the same dynamic cognitive and kinaesthetic processes that we go through when we interact with our physical and sociocultural environments. Lately I've been looking at these questions and I have a few papers to share:

• Article "Embodied cognitive science, aesthetics, and the study of vi...

• Article Signs of resistance: iconography and semasiography in Otomi ...

• Chapter Cloud Serpent, King of the Place of the Flowering Tender Ear...

Best regards,

David

Are you saying that there is not order to the system?

There is order to everything in the universe, but the patterns of interrelations are complex. In this case, I'm thinking of a network of feedback loops that could be expressed visually by double-headed causal arrows connecting each of your five concepts with all the others.

Would it look like this?

Something like that, Kevin, but with double-headed arrows, and more of them, weaving the various concepts into a more complex and less linear pattern.

I think the one sided arrows are sufficient. Consider this. Can visual language become visual communication without being percieved?

Dear Kevin Dunn the assumption of a causation between visual communication, visual thinking and visual learning is an interesting one. 'A picture speaks more than thousand words' a famous saying goes. So I think in a lot of cases if you presents an explanation in pictures and drawings, it can give better insights which can lead to learning. In your theory though words are part of visual communication. And apart from that, what do you mean by learning? Do you mean changed behavior or something else?

I see more complexity here, Kevin. The pattern I see in my mind's eye has a lot more loops. Try this, by way of example: visual language - visual communication - visual perception - visual learning - visual thinking. You can scramble the sequence in many ways. These concepts, combined with others, form an integrated network with a high degree of complexity. At present I am visualizing a three-dimensional pattern, embedded within an infinitely extended system of three-dimensional patterns that represent the context into which our being/ perceiving/ learning/ thinking/ interacting is seamlessly integrated.

Rudi Darson, this theory has not intention of defining learning. That is another type of work. Visual learning is learning that involves visualization or visual information. I'll leave the definition of learning to someone since this is not a learning theory.

David Charles Wright-Carr I think your missing the point of creating a theory. Discuss the inner metaphysics of your mind and pretent like it is meaningful to other people as much as you like. Respectfully we can't be you, we can't see your thoughts, therefore your thoughts on your own thinking are meaningless to us. Secondly, a theory needs to be as simple as possible, functional, and useful to be a "theory". Secondly the whole thing is one big loop why have a bunch of extra confusing loops.

Anrheim - visual communication occurs through visual perception, all learning must pass through the senses, visualization is the only mental medium that is suited for thought. Visual lang -> V Perc -> V Comm

If a tree falls in the wood and no ones sees it. Did it fall? If visual language occurs and no one is there to perceive, it did visual communication occur? Perception must be in between the languaging and the communication since you cannot have one without the other.

What do you do when you want to work something out? Write it? Draw it? Visualize it? Do you use your senses both internal and outward sensing for? You are communicating with yourself. Perception is negligible and is not a mediating factor because you know what your talking about and there is no room for misunderstanding due to perceptual differences. Basically your using the external as a way to store thoughts for refinement. A reflection of the internal to the external and back into internal. Therefore a double arrow between visual communication and thinking representing self communication.

Which comes first the thought or the action? Without visual thinking there is no such thing as visual learning. We think and then we learn. It is impossible to claim to have learned something before attempting to learn, which requires thinking. In the case of the previously stated situation of self visual communication or visualization(whether internal or through a medium). Visual learning becomes new visual communication then can become new visual thinking and then new visual learning. If the visual thinking needs to be externalized for communication to someone else it moves to visual communication and then becomes visual language or visual learning having occured can become new visual communication and then communicated as visual language to the second party. The same process occurs within the receiver. Then the process occurs again.

Согласен

Correction Arnheim not Anrheim. I'm referencing his Visual Thinking 1969.

Dear Kevin:

Of course, falling trees do not need witnesses to fall. Visual communication and perception are parts of intersubjective interactions with a variety of possible temporal sequences, as they are aspects of complex processes, singled out and labeled in our analytical verbal/logical thought processes. I don't have the time to go into more lengthy explanations here, but perhaps the three articles I referenced in my initial post, a week ago, might shed some light on what I am trying to explain. Complex systems theory could be useful for moving forward with your model, if you should choose to look into it. As it now stands, your model would not be useful in my work with visual languages, as it does not include some of the basic interrelations between the core concepts, imposing sequential causal connections that do not necessarily correspond to what is happening in the complex process of visual thinking/ communicating/ learning/ perceiving. The best way to develop this model would be to put it to use, to explain what is happening with a specific case of visual language, looking for exceptions rather than confirmation, and using your findings to refine the theory. I wish you success in your research.

Best regards,

David

I don't see any articles in your original post. I would love to look over the works you referenced.

I'm familiar with Complexity Theory. It is used to model complex social relationships, environmental effects, groups of animals and other networks. I can see how it might model the external components of visual communication. However, my theory is designed to model the internal processing of visual information in an educational context, (think Baddeley and read up on educational theory and visual literacy). Not sure if we're on the same page. The study of visual language and visual literacy has been crowded by people who are incapable of defining things simply. Basically I'm saying your work could benefit from less lofty language and less complexity. The purpose of complexity theory is to take something that looks complex and define it by relationships on an agent to agent basis. Thereby taking something that is incomprehensible and making it comprehensible.

Another problem with adding a bunch of arrows is this. If you create connections between all components in a theory. Doesn't that mean that there is no real structure to the phenomenon that your studying and that there is no need to a structure. If all parts are equal why define them.

Kevin: to see the links to the articles, you'll have to back up to the beginning of the thread (using the "show previous answers" button) and then hit the "read more" button at the end of the first answer, since RG chops off the tails of all but the shortest posts. The first article there explains why there are problems with the old (20th century) cognitivist/computationalist paradigm, which is overdependent on "internal processing", largely ignoring --or at least downplaying-- the embodied nature of mind and its physical and sociocultural contexts (that's the third dimension to the patterns I mentioned above, when trying to translate my visual thinking into a brief verbal image). The articles I suggested contain working definitions of key concepts and references to more detailed explanations, especially the first article. This may help you understand my previous posts. In my view, I'm not inventing the arrows I proposed; the connections already exist, and a model should be sufficient to describe the phenomena being studied if it is to be useful. If you like to keep things on a simpler level, you are welcome to do so. As you apply your theory to real cases, you may --or may not-- find it necessary to expand and refine it, depending on your research goals. Its strengths and weaknesses will probably become apparent through its application to a variety of examples of visual communication.

Thanks David Charles, thanks for your feedback. I'll look these over they are interesting. :)

You're welcome, Kevin. Thanks for posting the question. I'll step aside and let others have their say. It will be interesting to see where the conversation goes.