Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5
Cognitive Processes Involved
in Visual Thought
ABSTRACT
Cognitive thinking is discussed here in terms of processes involved in visual thought and visual problem
solving. This chapter recapitulates basic information about human cognition, cognitive structures, and
perceptual learning in relation to visual thought. It tells about some ideas in cognitive science, cognitive
functions in specific parts of the brain, reviews ideas about thinking visually and verbally, critical versus
creative thinking, components of creative performance, mental imagery, visual reasoning, and mental
images. Imagery and memory, visual intelligence, visual intelligence tests, and multiple intelligences
theory make further parts of the chapter. This is followed by some comments on cognitive development,
higher order thinking skills, visual development of a child, the meaning of student art in the course of
visual development, and the role of computer graphics in visual development.
INTRODUCTION
memory. Well, your memory is inside you. You
process the sentences you receive according to
your internal encyclopedias. The format of these
encyclopedias is inside you (Eco, 1990, p. 281).
In a book of an Italian writer, semiotician, and phi-
losopher Umberto Eco (1990) a human person is
having a conversation with a robot named Charles
Sanders Personal. This person says to a robot,
And the robot responds,
To think means to have internal interpretations
corresponding to the expressions you receive
or produce. You have told me a lot about your
I do not know whether my memory is the same as
that of my masters. According to my information,
they are very uncertain about what they have inside
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4703-9.ch005
