Hi Mike,

Thank you for differentiating between sketching/drawing and visual thinking/visual language.  At the moment, I see this difference as more a matter of relative scale and purpose rather than intrinsic differences. It appears to be much the same as the way the visual thinking skills of an illustrator differ from those of a photographer or a designer focused on typography, or a designer of interior space, or fashion, or. . .

On the brain issues, I'm no expert but I try to keep up to date with brain region mapping and the neuro-cognition findings as they relate to design activity. As I understand it,  visual *perception*  occurs in a region of the brain's 'visual or occipital cortex' that was for several decades assumed to be dedicated to visual perception processing but recently there are suggestions it may be better seen as  be a general purpose sensory input processing region that just happens to be more predominately used  for visual purposes in those that have eyes. Blind humans use the same region for touch and sound processing.

Second, 'visual perception' and 'visual analysis'  are different kettles of fish. 'Visual analysis',  as I understand it, is the sort of learned skill that graphic designers and similar  use in their practices. Its what makes visually-skilled designers graphic designers and the like. 'Visual analysis' which is what designers are trained to do. As I understand it, the brain and neurocognitive literature has visual analysis  occurring  primarily   in prefrontal and parietal regions (as do the *conscious* elements of visual perception. This is not the same visual occipital  cortex region brain region that was assumed to be dedicated to visual perception processing.

Mathematics processing is also undertaken in prefrontal and parietal regions. More importantly, perhaps, much of advanced mathematics appears to be undertaken by mentally envisaging the behaviours of aspects of complex mathematical functions, concepts  and equations. These task seem to involve high levels of visualisation in many individuals and seem to be also undertaken in the same regions of the prefrontal and parietal  cortices that many aspects of visual analysis are undertaken. See for example, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053699  and http://www.pnas.org/content/107/5/2277.full   If you have contradictory info I'd love to read it.

On the issue of representing time, I think we are seeing the role of representing dynamic behaviours very differently. Tufte (Minard) provided an indication of order and progression with data at different points.  That is a different sort of time-based representation  than predicting say the exact dynamics of how Eduardo's pencil will move as he sketches a new drawing.

On a final point, Please could you say more about the detail of the things that visual thinking does better than maths?  I believe it does. My experience is  it seems quite hard to make an explicit case -  over and above that people find visuals easier to understand than maths. I welcome your thoughts and advice.

Best wishes ,
Terry

---
Dr Terence Love
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IEED, Management School
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

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-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Mike Zender
Sent: Wednesday, 11 September 2013 10:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Perhaps it is the word "Designer" that is the problem

Terry:

Sorry for the delayed response. 

Thanks for your informative response. I forgot about engineering drawing in my earlier post, an important omission! Thanks for the links.

I noted at the start of my post to Don that my use of ‘sketching’ was shorthand for something larger:
<SNIP> I’ll adopt your reference to sketching as a catch-all for ‘art-based’ training in visual form <END SNIP>. 
I was speaking of intense training in visual form that cultivates visual thinking, develops skill in visual language, not just drawing/sketching.

Our undergraduate Industrial Design program requires 4 drawing specific courses over the first two years, with drawing then required for nearly every subsequent studio. In addition there are the standard courses exploring visual form (color, shape, aesthetics, etc.), two in the freshman year followed by others. My point is that designers cultivate drawing and creation of form languages in a much more significant way than Engineers. Of course, our designers take only one required mathematics class, and use advanced maths very little in their work! By the way, our designers earn a BS (science) degree, not an art degree.

I can’t comment on maths at the advanced level or I’m in danger of having an opinion based on ignorance! Not that my other arguments aren't also based on ignorance, particularly the ones below touching on visual perception where I am a rank amateur!!  

That said, your sequence concept could be taken to imply that math is for higher order work. That it depends on the nature of the work! I argued for visual thinking for creative problem solving and innovation work. I would not argue for visual thinking as a tool for planning the details of landing a man on the moon.

Contrary to your comment on brain use: Math doesn’t use the same parts of the brain as visual perception/visual thinking. The cortical areas for visual perception and visual thinking are quite specialized and distinct. See David Hubel’s “Eye Brain and Vision” for a primer. A very large portion of our cortex is devoted to visual perception / visual thinking. Visual perception / visual thinking are not obscure or vague domains, as Don noted in his response to me (noting Steve Kosslyn). Engaging in reading some of the recent neurobiological and psychological findings on visual perception is really quite rewarding for any designer, I highly recommend it. If there’s interest I can supply a reading list. 

Drawing, sketching, visual thinking is not limited to three dimensions as you suggest! I’m sure you had representational drawing in mind. But Edward Tufte’s presentation of Minard’s graphic of Napoleon’s march into Russia is but one example of including time; small multiples adds another different dimension. So I quite disagree with your points that visual form 1. is limited to three dimensions, or that 2. it can’t model time. 

I in no way want to demean math or Engineers. God bless both! And I wholly agree that math does things visual thinking can not do. As suggested above I wouldn’t want to start a trip to the moon just on visual thinking!! But I was and am saying “sketching” (as defined above), now described better as visual thinking, does things well that math doesn’t. 

I note that in this argument I’m at a disadvantage in that I’m trying to elucidate visualizing in this TEXT ONLY environment!

In summary response to your thought on sequence, I think it depends on the nature of the problem, but I will agree that when moving into details that more precise languages are more appropriate.

I’m happy I delayed responding until the interesting twist of this thread into maths for design, initiated by Francois. Mathematics is an issue we struggle with particularly in teaching interaction design and programming. While respecting that different individuals have different given abilities (talents), it never hurts to improve in areas outside your areas of strength. Designers need more maths. 

Best…

Mike


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