Visual thinking: what is it and how does it influence education?

Let's see what is the concept of visual thinking and what pedagogical proposals are associated with it.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so it is not surprising that our mind prefers to work with visual elements rather than using verbalized language. It is true that words allow us to describe reality in detail, but images are directly a representation of that reality.

But despite the fact that visual thinking seems to be a fundamental aspect of our way of processing information, the truth is that in the field of education, graphic methods have been largely neglected and priority has been given to textual and oral explanations of the contents to be taught in class.

However, in the middle of the last in the middle of the last century a new concept emerged, the visual thinking or "visual thinking". which sought to recover the importance of working with images, both to capture information and to explain it. Let's see what this pedagogical approach consists of.

What is visual thinking?

Visual thinking is a pedagogical approach that a pedagogical approach that argues that, since the mind prefers to work with images rather than with verbalized language, it is ideal for creating, sharing, sharing, and communicating.The ideal way to create, share, develop and manipulate ideas is to represent them in visual terms.

Thus, visual thinking is both a theoretical framework and a tool that advocates the use of graphic resources. advocates the use of graphic resources to be able to express ideas and concepts in a way that is easier for our brain to assimilate. for our brain, relying on graphic representations of textual and audiovisual content.

1. Importance of visual thinking

Human beings are visual animals and, in fact, our way of interpreting the world is based to a large extent on what we perceive by sight, our way of interpreting the world is based to a large extent on what we perceive by sight.. It is said that about 90% of the information our brain receives is visual and we are able to process images much faster than any information given to us in the form of text or spoken language. Visual information leaves a deeper impression on us than what we read or what we are told.

It is clear that language, both written and oral, is a very sophisticated and useful tool for transmitting our ideas, however, this vehicle for transmitting concepts does not have the immediacy and proximity that an image has, since the image is, in itself, the representation of the pure concept itself. For example, learning what an apple is is much easier to do by seeing an apple in a picture or in real life than by memorizing its definition.

Although language is very useful, it is neither perceptual nor immediate, and requires a priori reflection.It also requires a priori reflection. Written and oral language tells us what we have already heard, seen or thought, it does not start from a direct contact with reality, but rather a long description of what it is. Although we can think using verbalized language, what some call "mentalés", it is not possible to think quickly without resorting to images. In fact, thinking about a concept using images makes that concept better understood and, also, better remembered.

But despite the fact that it has been known for quite some time that human beings tend to resort to images, traditional education has downplayed this fact. As written and oral culture developed, written text was preferred as it allowed information to be conveyed more easily and unambiguously, but its expressiveness and ease of memorization were also sacrificed.

The idea behind the theorists of visual thinking is to recover visual language as a tool for understanding the world. recover visual language as a tool to better understand and explain reality.. Instead of focusing so much on reading texts with few descriptive images, resorting to visual support and inviting learners to describe their ideas using graphs, drawings or pictograms is increasingly being considered a better option to facilitate learning.

2. The figure of Rudolf Arnheim

One cannot speak of visual thinking as a pedagogical doctrine without mentioning one of its greatest exponents: Rudolf Arnheim. This German psychologist published in 1969 a work with the same title, "Visual Thinking" which, already in the mid-twentieth century, considered that the traditional methodologies in education had failed in the field of visual education.. Vision was a primordial means for thinking but had been left aside in the classroom, giving priority to written words, which sometimes refer to ideas defined in a way that is too abstract to be understood without images.

Thus Arnheim argued that people learn much more richly through sight, either by appealing to sensations or to nuances, aspects that verbalized language could not adequately express. Textbooks and classes should introduce visual methods and see if students could express the ideas seen in class by means of drawings or visual resources. If they succeeded, it meant that they had managed to internalize and understand what they had seen in class, as well as to make use of their creativity.

Dan Roam's method

Another of the great referents of the concept of visual thinking is Dan Roam, who proposed a method to develop it in his book "Your World on a Napkin. proposed a method to develop it in his 2010 book "Your world on a napkin", in which he defends the concept of visual thinking.in which he defends the idea that drawings or images of any kind serve to better communicate, outline and summarize our ideas rather than resorting to written text. However, before transforming a concept into a visual representation, it is necessary to ask a few questions:

• Who is the idea intended for?
• How much should it be summarized?
• Where should it be done? What type of visual support should be used?
• How to do it?
• When to expose it?
• Why give it a visual support?

Once these questions have been answered, the process of transforming an idea into something visual begins. Roam talks about four phases:

1. Look

Information is collected and selectedand concentrating on the most important things that represent the idea reliably.

2. Seeing

Patterns are recognized and the most interesting are selected Thinking about the audience that will receive the visual message, grouping the information you have appropriately.

3. Imagine

Reorganize the informationThis is the moment in which new ideas are imagined that can give a creative push to the visual representation of the concept to be expressed.

4. Show

Finally, the information is synthesized the information is synthesized and clarity is given to everything that has been raised in the previous phases. It is at this point that the idea that has been transformed into a visual concept is shown.

Any visual support can be useful to expose any idea. Whether by means of diagrams, graphs, visual infographics or any visual element, it can be easier for the audience to assimilate and handle an idea that in textual and oral terms can become too abstract.

Advantages of promoting visual thinking

Especially at the teaching level, promoting visual thinking implies many advantages, especially because, as we have already mentioned, it helps in the understanding of concepts and ideas that, when defined textually, may not be fully grasped. Although we should not forget that texts are not an element to be dispensed with in education, visual aids should also be present in the classroomThey help to better assimilate what the textbooks are trying to express.

But showing images to students not only helps them to assimilate the concepts, but also to ask them to make use of their own visual thinking skills. Asking students to try to express graphically what has been exposed in class is a very good way to make them work on that idea, try to understand it and handle it beyond its verbalized definition. The student has to think about the idea, synthesize it and finally represent it in an original way so that what it is is understood. Thus, metacognition and the retention of the learning imparted in the classroom are encouraged.

We also encourage creativity in the classroom, an aspect that is very much neglected in traditional education being only seen in subjects considered purely artistic such as music or visual arts. Each individual can have a very different way of representing the same concept, and that is not a bad thing. and that is not a bad thing, on the contrary. Asking students to graphically represent a concept given in class gives full freedom to their imagination, something that makes learning seen as a playful and pleasurable activity.

Bibliographical references:

• Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual Thinking. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24226-5.
• Roam. D. (2010). Your world on a napkin. Barcelona, Spain. Ediciones gestión 2000. ISBN: 9788498754445.
• Pashler, H.; McDaniel, M.; Rohrer, D.; Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 9: 105-119. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.