Metasketching

METASKETCHING
VISUAL IDEATION RESEARCH PROJECT - WORK IN PROGRESS

Introduction | Research | Publications | Files | Events | Workshops

RESEARCH


Art of sketching - Language of sketching - Science of sketching - Technology of sketching - Practice of sketching

Systematic reviews
Related studies, literature review - summary of current evidence.

Introduction

In his book "Sketching User Experiences," Bill Buxton defines the term "sketching" through the set of essential features, such as the presence of minimal details, ambiguity, suggestiveness, or gestural character. These attributes indeed appear typical for such a form of visual communication; however, the mechanics of their functioning at the neural level has historically never been explained adequately, and they remained at theoretical level. Fortunately, thanks to modern neuroscience and MRI technology, these principles are finally explained convincingly and systematically - as seen the example of David Eagleman's research.
This block includes the outcome of the neuroscience courses organized by Duke University in Durham, North Carolina at Cognitive, Auditory, and Neural Bases of Language and Speech. Jannet M. Groh, Ph.D. "The Brain and Space" and Dale Purves, MD "Visual Perception and the Brain."
Although neuroscience provides, in most cases, relatively comprehensive descriptions of brain processes associated with thinking and ideation, many questions remain. Such answers could be found, perhaps more appropriately, in the fields of psychology and cognitive science. For example, in the theory of amodal completion in the visual perception of Slobodan Markovich of the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, the Department of Psychology, the University of Belgrade, or in the work of Vinod Goel, especially his book "Sketches of Thoughts", or in general in the research of Barbara Tversky, Professor Emerita of Psychology at Stanford University and Professor of Psychology at Teachers
College, Columbia University.


Neuroscience and cognitive psychology:
David Eagleman - "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain", ISBN 0-307-37733-4
Barbara Tversky - “Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought”, ISBN 9780465093076
Donald D. Hoffman - “Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See”, ISBN 0393319679
Donald D. Hoffman - “Observer Mechanics: A Formal Theory of Perception”, ISBN 1483236064

Design and architecture:

Vinod Goel - "Sketches of Thought," MIT Press, 1995
Bill Buxton - "Sketching User Experiences," MK Elsevier, 2007
Theory of new media:

Steven R. Holzman - "Digital Mantras," MIT Press, 1994
Lev Manovich - "The Language Of New Media," MIT Press, 1995
Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin - "Remediation," MIT Press, 2000
Nick Montfort, Noah Wardrip-Fruin - "The New Media Reader," MIT Press, 2003
Jaron Lanier - "Dawn of the New Everything," by Henry Holt and Company, 2017


Research notes:

Barbara Tversky
Barbara Tversky: Visualising the Invisible
Video: https://vimeo.com/69570013

Gestures:
- Actions
- Construct structure in space
- … that create abstractions - Spractions

Spraction:
- Actions in space
- Create structures in space
- … that enable abstractions

Gestures and though
- Thought is internalized action
- Gestures are actions
- Gestures can re-externalize thought

Sketches: Breadcrumbs of gesture
- Gestures come free, are ancient
- People gesture alone when they think
- Both sketches and gestures
○ Aid thinking
○ Foster learning

Marks in space have meaning
- Dot: Place, entity, value
- Line: Path, connection, relation
- Arrow: Directed relation
- Circlet: Cycle, no beginning or end
- Blob: Category, set, group

Sketches/ing (gestures/ing) benefit learners
- Offload limited memory processing
- Extract essence of ideas & structure them
- Use natural mapping of meaning and marks
- Check for coherence & completeness
- Platform for inference & discovery

Externalizations of Thoughts: Cognitive tools
- Augment memory/information processing
- Use space and action to represent literal and metaphoric space and action
- Promote communication, interference, discovery and creativity

Advantages of visual explanations
- Natural mapping: meaning to space
- Check for completeness
- Check for coherence
- Encourage inference from structure to function

Good graphics:
- Convey meaning directly using place in space and marks in space
- Check for completeness
- Check for coherence
Promote inference and discovery