Eight autistic children and young adolescents (mean age 12.9 years) were compared to normal chronological age controls. Ss were required to discriminate briefly presented visual stimuli when they were preceded or followed by a visual noise mask and when they were not. The minimum stimulus exposure duration for criterion identification of unmasked…

A teacher of learning disabled secondary students discusses the role of visual learning in motivating students and increasing their communication skills. Application of visual methods in an American and British setting is seen to have resulted in gains in self concept, motivation toward school, and in comunication skills. (CL)

This paper reviews two studies of color preference and the relationships between color and legibility. The Gustin study in 1991 dealt with the legibility of and preference for projected slides with colored backgrounds and white text. The order of background color preference was cyan, blue, green, yellow, magenta, and red. The follow-up study by…

This paper examines the role of myths and symbols in society through the use of a hypothetical dialogue. The paper begins by explaining what myths are and the functions they serve. Mythology and mythical symbols of past and present are compared. These changes in the nature of mythological symbols are explored through a dialogue between an artist…

People find difficulty in performing syllogistic reasoning. This paper outlines some reasons for poor syllogistic reasoning. Representational systems (RS) used in presenting and evaluating syllogisms can be distinguished in terms of attributes such as specificity, expressiveness, and abstraction. Graphical RSs have pedagogical potential because of…

Information graphics or diagrams are two-dimensional maps of relationships that present information. Creators and interpreters of diagrams need to know what makes some diagrams more effective in communicating information. This paper suggests a theoretical framework for diagram classification to make this possible. This framework consists of two…

This paper describes deep viewing, a research and instructional method used to reach social understandings of visual texts through the use of communal talk, pictorial, and written means. It provides a means of analysis for any type of visual text. The theoretical origins and premises of deep viewing are examined. Also, the deep viewing methodology…

The central premise of this paper is that there is a group of visual thinking skills which are becoming increasingly foundational and basic to the education of a contemporary citizenry. These skills are becoming more vital as the use of digital imagery increases. The skills are independent of the external technologies (i.e., hardware and software)…

Assessment of severely multiply handicapped children was completed via formal and informal assessment with data covering medical, ophthalmological, auditory, and educational aspects. Visual functioning was evaluated by considering the type of visual stimulus experienced, varying visual tasks, and student motivation and ability. Auditory evaluation…

The interaction between field dependence/independence and pictorial recognition memory was investigated using pictures in three different color modes: realistic color, non-realistic color, and black and white. The study was designed to further confirm the efficacy of applying signal detection analyses to color recognition memory data as a means of…

Pansophism, invented by the philosopher John Amos Comenius in the mid-1600s, is a system of education for all people to be made knowledgeable about the world, able to judge its events for themselves, and able otherwise to generate and sustain the conditions of progress. In developing this system of education, Comenius combined his first treatises…

Three groups of college students were exposed to a 22 minute interview with a cerebral palsied person, in either an audio, video, or transcript format. An expectancy questionnaire covering such aspects as academic and vocational achievements, communication with the public, ability to handle put downs, and effectiveness of sexual expression was…

Synectics is an approach to creative thinking that depends on understanding together that which is apparently different. Its main tool is analogy or metaphor. The approach, which is often used by groups, can help students develop creative responses to problem solving, to retain new information, to assist in generating writing, and to explore…

This paper examines issues in identifying visually gifted children, including artistic talent and its relationship to visual giftedness; the contexts in which visual giftedness represents a specific type of intelligence; the ability of classroom teachers to identify the visually gifted; resources that may help classroom teachers identify the…

Visual knowledge is an enormously important part of our total knowledge. The psychological study of learning and knowledge has focused almost exclusively on verbal materials. Today, the advance of technology is making the use of visual communication increasingly feasible and popular. However, this enthusiasm involves the illusion that visual…