Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
SOME PHILOSOPHICAL
APPROACHES TO PERCEPTUAL
THINKING
materials, might be in their emotional impact,
which would bridge the distance between the ob-
ject and the viewer. Thus cognitive and expressive
meanings conveyed by visuals, for example, the
use of line for the visual exchange of the shared
symbols, may improve the capacity for learning.
With the phenomenological approach, which
is focused on the study of essence connecting our
consciousness with our thought, science tends
to be considered as only one of possible ways
of knowing, not necessarily securing access to
truth. Perceptional thinking may help to connect
what we perceive as real with our awareness of
the constructed notions about universal properties
of phenomena experienced and essences of things
thought. Phenomena experienced may differ from
what we know or believe.
Cognition is often described as the act of know-
ing. Theorists often refer cognitive thinking to
problem solving, hypothesis testing, and concept
acquisition. Human mind is structured to select
and analyze information, organize it into memory
store, and then retrieve from memory informa-
tion picked up by the senses to use it in various
ways, not necessarily consciously, for example,
for use in decision-making. Cognitive thinking is
used in experimental research for gathering data
and information, testing hypotheses, interpreting
results, and providing scientific evidence for new
theories. Cognitive scientists connect cognitive
reasoning with rationality (Stanovich, West, &
Toplak, 2011); they recognize two types of ra-
tionality: instrumental rationality, which denotes
“behaving in the world so that you get exactly what
you most want, given the resources (physical and
mental) available to you” and epistemic rationality,
which “concerns how well beliefs map onto the
actual structure of the world” (Stanovich, West,
& Toplak, 2011, p. 795).
We build our knowledge on conceptual struc-
tures that result from our own experience of the
real world, prove them experimentally, and then
test them against experience shared with others and
by consistency with our beliefs about what we hold
Before the onset of the constructivist approach,
there was a general belief in an objective reality:
all things exist objectively around the observing
person, reality is independent of an observer or
culture, all structures, objects, codes and laws are
ready to be described.
In constructivist terms, not an objective reality
but the understanding of one's own experiences is
important. Reality is not residing outside or inde-
pendent of an observer. Reality is starting within
circular process of perception, understanding
and making things, and through experience con-
structing individual understanding of the world.
Knowledge results from a construction of reality
by a person. Making constructions of the cogni-
tive schemes, categories, concepts, structures,
rules, mental models, and assigning meaning to
individual experiences are important in learning
- the process of adjusting our mental models to
accommodate new experiences. For example, the
prints on the sand on a beach become meaningful
for the thought through perception. A notion of a
gift becomes a social structure that arises out of
social practices. And thus, constructivism is based
on the principles telling that learning is a search
for meaning, and meaning requires understanding
both wholes and parts in the context of wholes.
Learners construct mental models, the assump-
tions that support those models and their own
meaning (someone else's meaning).
In the process of learning, the impact of visuals
on cognitive activities and learning gains more at-
tention every day because of the facilitating effect
of visual learning on understanding configurations
and relationships described by formulas. In terms
of pedagogical constructivism, learning is an in-
terpretive process leading to the construction of
the individual's subjective reality, not identical
with the knowledge of the teacher. The value of
the works of art, as well as of visual educational
