Ninety university undergraduate students were tested on a number of tasks assessing their recognition of possible and impossible figures, mental rotation, ideational fluency, and self-report artistic and creative characteristics. Scores on the Impossible Figures Task (IFT-14) and the Mental Rotation Test, and self-ratings on the Artistic…

A eulogy to art educator and researcher Henry Schaefer-Simmern, explaining his theory of gestalt visual conceiving and artistic cognition. (SJL)

Reviews empirical and theoretical writings showing how visual arts affect: growth of perception and awareness through use of the senses; clarification of styles of thought and their effect on personal expression; inventiveness and general problem-solving ability; feelings of confidence and self-worth; and general learning motivation and success.…

This paper illustrates and explains the relationship between drawing ability and spatial and visual-perceptual ability; it defines those terms and explores their connection to intelligence and information processing as well as their potential implications for education and training. Discussion covers results of recent studies, which suggest that…

The study of metaphor involves numerous fields in recent history from cognitive neuroscience to linguistics. Visual metaphor research occupies an underrepresented area of inquiry. With the development of the cognitive sciences, a cognitive view of metaphoric thinking is emerging. This calls for a reconsideration of visual metaphor in the…

Based on the more general principle that all thinking (including reasoning) is basically perceptual in nature, the author proposes that visual perception is not a passive recording of stimulus material but an active concern of the mind. He delineates the task of visually distinguishing changes in size, shape, and position and points out the…