Visuospatial Thinking
Outline of the course:
A course of readings with specific reference to science pedagogy.
Method: Each participant is expected to have read the paper assigned for the session. One of the participants will lead a discussion on the paper. Students will complete six written assignments and two oral presentations during the semester.
Topics and readings (tentative list):
I. Concept-formation through visualization
Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual Thinking. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Chapter 6 (The images of thought) and Chapter 7 (Concepts take shape).
Gregory, R. L. (1970). The Intelligent Eye. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
(selected chapters)
Thomas, N. J. T. (2003) Mental imagery, philosophical issues about. Lynn Nadel (Editor in Chief), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Volume 2. London: Nature Publishing / Macmillan. 1147-1153.
http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/nthomas/mipia.htm
Reisberg, D. and Heuer, F. (2005). Visuospatial images. In Priti Shah and
Akira Miyake (Eds.), Handbook of Visuospatial Reasoning. New York: Cambridge
University Press. 35-80.
II. Development of spatial cognition
Kosslyn, S. M. and Bower, G. H. (1974). The role of imagery in sentence
memory: a developmental study. Child Development, 45, 30-38.
Gruber, H. E. and Voneche, J. J. (1977). The Essential Piaget, New York:
Basic Books (Part VIII - pp 643-84 - summary of Piaget, J. and Inhelder, B.
(1966). Mental Imagery in the Child. Routledge.)
Newcombe, N. and Learmonth, A. (2005). Development of spatial competence. In
Priti Shah and Akira Miyake (Eds.), Handbook of Visuospatial Reasoning. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
III. Visuo spatial as cognitive style
Paivio, A. (1980). Imagery as a private audio-visual aid. Instructional Science 9(4), 295-309. Dabbagh, Nada http://chd.gse.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/strategies/cognitivism/DualCo dingTheory.htm
West, T. (1998). In the Mind's Eye. (or equivalent)
Hegarty, M. and Waller, David A. (2005). Individual differences in spatial
abilities. In Priti Shah and Akira Miyake (Eds.), Handbook of Visuospatial
Reasoning. New York: Cambridge University Press. 121-169. 213-256.
IV. Visuo spatial thought in scientific discovery
Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual Thinking. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Chapter 15 (Models for theory).
Nersessian, N. J. (1995). How do scientists think? Capturing the dynamics of conceptual change in science. In Giere, R. N. (Ed.), Cognitive Models of Science. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, MN. 3-45. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/aimosaic/faculty/nersessian/papers/how-do-scientist s-think.pdf
V. Analysing complex visuospatial reasoning
Tversky, B. (2005). Visuospatial reasoning. Chapter 10 in K. Holyoak and R. Morrison (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~bt/space/papers/tversky_visuospatial-reasoning-chapter.pdf
Tversky, B. and Heiser, J. (). Mental models of complex systems: structure and function.
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~bt/diagrams/papers/mental_models-heiser-tvers ky.pdfVI. Visual imagery and pictorial depiction
Kosslyn, S. M., Heldmeyer, K. H., and Locklear, E. P. (1977). Children's drawings as data about internal representations. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 23, 191-211.
Narayanan, N. Hari (1997). Diagrammatic communication: a taxonomic overview. In B. Kokinov (Ed.) Perspectives on Cognitive Science, Vol. 3, Sophia: New Bulgarian University Press. pp. 91-122.
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/department/cse/research/vi3rg/vi3rg.html Guerin, F., Ska, B. and Belleville, (1999). Cognitive processing of drawing abilities. Brain and Cognition, 40, 464-478.
Tversky, B. (2001). Spatial schemas in depictions. In M. Gattis (Ed.) Spatial Schemas and Abstract Thought. Cambridge: MIT Press.
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~bt/diagrams/papers/spatialschemaspaperjul19-2
..pdfimplications for pedagogy, Journal of Visual Literacy, 19 (2), 139-158.
http://punya.educ.msu.edu/PunyaWeb/pubs/print/abstraction/abstraction.pdf
