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information about individual landmarks in a single relatively intact piece, which
allow rapid and easy access to the embedded landmarks. In addition, the greater the
integration of structural and feature information in the image, the more intact the
image is. It is much easier to find landmark information in an intact image. Once
landmark information is found, it can help to retrieve further details. If we visualize
a paradigm as a cluster of highly cited landmark articles and combine citation and
co-citation into the same visualization model, then users are likely to construct an
intact image of a network of top-sliced articles from the chosen subject domain.
Paul Thagard (
1992
) proposed a computational approach to the study of con-
ceptual revolutions. The primary purpose is to clarify the structural characteristics
of conceptual systems
before
,
during
,and
after
conceptual revolutions. He placed
his own approach between the formal approaches of logical empiricism and Kuhn's
historical ones.
Tracking the dynamics of competing paradigms requires us to focus on a
paradigm as the unit of analysis. Visualized interrelationships between individual
publications in the literature must be explained in a broader context of a scientific
inquiry. We need to consider how individual publications contribute to the devel-
opment of a scientific debate. We need to consider how we could differentiate
paradigms. In this topic, we will pay particular attention to how information
visualization and visual analytics techniques may help us track the development
of competing paradigms.
Gestalt psychology believes that our mind is holistic. We see the entirety of an
object before we attend to its parts. And the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts. In terms of information theory, the way that individual parts form the whole
gives us additional information about the system as a whole. Norwood Russell
Hanson (1924-1967) argues in his
Patterns of Discovery
(
1958
) that what we see is
influenced by our existing preconceptions.
Kuhn further developed the view how a
gestalt switch
is involved in scientific
discovery and explained the nature of a paradigm shift in terms of a gestalt
switch. Kuhn cited an experiment in which psychologists showed participants
ordinary playing cards at brief exposures and demonstrated that our perceptions are
influenced by our expectations. For example, it took much longer for participants
to recognize unanticipated cards such as black hearts or red spades than recognize
expected ones. Kuhn quoted one comment: “I can't make the suit out, whatever it
is. It didn't even look like a card that time. I don't know what color it is now or
whether it's a spade or heart. I'm not sure I even know what a spade looks like. My
God!”
To Kuhn, such dramatic shifts in perception also explain what scientific com-
munities experience in scientific revolutions. When Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
abandoned the universe of perfect circles, he must have experienced some similar
holistic change. Empirical evidence is central to Kuhn's view. Before a paradigm
shift can take place, anomalies would have to accumulate and build up. But why did
anomalies trigger a Gestalt switch in the mind of Kepler or Einstein but not others?
And how did others then become convinced to adopt the new paradigms?
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