by SEG

Created on: August 17, 2011   Last Updated: March 23, 2012

Research studies demonstrate that our daily cognitive ‘model-building’, our recognition of patterns, structures, connectivity and temporal processes is fundamentally the same as that used by scientists producing and distributing knowledge about such elaborate processes as high-energy physics. (2)  (Gooding, D. 2006, p. 689)

Like all processes of human understanding, scientific awareness and assemblies of group-knowledge rely on combinations of our sensory experiences, such as visual, tactile and auditory.  Scientists employ a cognitive strategy of interpretations proceeding from visual pattern and structure recognitions through the identifications of the processes involved.  And this is the same system we employ to understand our own personal and business procedures on a daily basis as a ‘visual inference system’ (3) (4) (think of the visual process-diagrams we use at work for our creation of information; these are cognitive-model constructions with subsequent group communications).  This is a universal skill we all learn from observations, irrespective of our culture or profession. (Gooding, D. 2006, p. 688, 689)

According to David Gooding (2002, p. 689) (5) visual models pivotally mediate between our recognition and subsequent interpretations of information; helping produce the explanations that comprise our ‘Distributed Knowledge-Bearing Representation’ during our cognitive modeling process.  This universal cognitive process is today a widespread merger of humans and machines—in particular computers—promoting the large-scale knowledge production and distribution systems propelling our contemporary information-age.  (6) 

The crucial mediation of visual methods to “Distributed Representations” is embedded within several model building processes that are universally employed by scientists and engineers- and everyone else.  We create visually dependent ‘hybrid’’ and ‘multimodal’ models; using ‘representational plasticity’ and ‘representational variation’ as building aids.  (Gooding, D., 2002)

And it’s not as complicated as it might sound once you recognize it as your own processes.

HYBRID and MULTIMODAL MODELS

Effective ‘Hybrid’ models employ our natural combinations of visual, verbal and numerical modes of representation to create and display our interpretations.  The ‘camera

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>