Although the paradigm of visual literacy (VL) is rapidly emerging, the construct itself still lacks operational specificity. Based on a semiotic understanding of visual culture as an ongoing process of "making meaning", we present in this study a skill-based classification of VL, differentiating four sets of VL skills: perception;…

Constructing meaning from science texts relies not only on comprehending the words but also the diagrams and other graphics. The goal of this study was to explore elementary students' perceptions of science diagrams and their skills related to diagram interpretation. 30 students, ranging from second grade through middle school, completed a diagram…

This article presents a tripartite framework for analyzing multimodal texts. The three analytical perspectives presented include: (1) perceptual, (2) structural, and (3) ideological analytical processes. Using Anthony Browne's picturebook "Piggybook" as an example, assertions are made regarding what each analytical perspective brings to the…

The results of three experiments showed that: (1) children from 20 to 32 months of age are able to identify basic-level, conceptual, and complementary relationships; (2) objects are responded to more effectively than pictures; and (3) both perceptual and verbal-symbolic processes are important in matching and identifying stimuli. (JMB)

In an instructional message the contextual dominance is most often conveyed in the form of printed or spoken sentences. Within any sentence used in conjunction with a picture are nouns or phrases that directly relate to contextual elements within the picture. These are called referents since they refer to objects perceptible in the picture. This…

For centuries artists have explored the uses of color in their compositions. Believing that colors have innate symbolic, expressive, and aesthetic qualities, artists have been aware that these properties can be magnified or subdued by organization within a compositional space, and artists have suggested that certain positions within a framed field…

Explores the social correlates of the interpretive abilities of young children to assess televised narratives. Demonstrates negative correlations between amount of television viewed by parents and children's television comprehension, indicating that the more parents viewed television, the worse their children performed on comprehension tests.…

Limits of graphic display design component variation based on cognitive tolerance for imprecision were investigated using compatibility functions. The compatibility function is an empirical definition of a perceptual category representing the grade of membership of an implied physical attribute into a corresponding conceptual category, measuring…

This study attempts to gain information concerning the receptive, as opposed to the creative, aesthetic experience by talking to museum professionals who spend their working lives identifying, appraising, and explicating works of art. The study is based on an underlying assumption that rules and practices for looking at art exist and must be…