These proceedings contain 37 papers from 51 authors noted for their expertise in the field of visual literacy. The collection is divided into three sections: (1) "Examining Visual Literacy" (including, in addition to a 7-year International Visual Literacy Association bibliography covering the period from 1983-1989, papers on the perception of…

The act of composition is based on perception, selection, and arrangement in time and space of what is seen. How the world is seen depends on experience, memory, sensibility, discriminative powers, sexual identity, and cultural and historical contexts. Students can learn to understand how their personality affects what they see by maintaining…

Human infants are sensitive from birth to some intrinsic properties of objects; they are also sensitive to position. During the first weeks of life, pertinent dimensions of differentiation between objects are relative to global properties of the entire object or pattern. Position is defined by the direction of a displacement: the trajectory…

The study followed up 30 premature Hungarian infants of low birthweight (less than 2500 grams) but no other major perinatal complications. Subjects were tested at age 6 on the Budapest-Binet IQ test, the Goodenough's "Draw a Person" test, the Bender Gestalt test, and a school entry test battery. Test performances at age 6 found that the…

Images express meaning through particular configurations of visual concepts. A distinguishing feature of discipline based art education is the use of visual imagery to transmit meaning to students. Discipline based art education incorporates concepts and skills from aesthetics, art criticism, art history, and art production and presents a unique…

While neuropsychology relates the neural structures damaged in traumatic brain injury with their cognitive functions in daily life, this report reviews evidence that elementary operations of cognition as defined by cognitive studies are the level at which the brain localizes its computations. Orienting of visual attention is used as a model task.…

The visual scanning of redundant and random spatial configurations of two-digit numbers was investigated in a target recognition task. The experimental technique involved a brief exposure of a probe (a two-digit number) at the center of the visual field, followed by a spatial pattern of 16 two-digit numbers which included the matching target in…

The spatial layout of visual displays was evaluated by means of three magnitude estimation tasks and one reproduction task. Each stimulus display consisted of 16 randomly-drawn, two-digit numbers. Six different spatial layouts, or display types, were used: systematic vs. random spatial order of numbers; regular vs. irregular boundaries of the…

This investigation of the encoding features of graphs begins with a description of a cognitive framework which allows designers to factor into the process of designing displays how people interpret the information found and what display properties are responsible for this interpretation. The framework also provides a performance measure for use in…

Research suggests that when subjects are given a rule as to how to translate auditory or verbal information into images, the images have many common characteristics with cognitive representations derived from visual perceptions. This experiment examined the process of cognitive integration and the similarities and differences between how imagined…

Studies of human problem solving have traditionally used deterministic tasks that require the execution of a systematic series of steps to reach a rational and optimal solution. Most real-world problems, however, are characterized by uncertainty, the need to consider an enormous number of variables and possible courses of action at each stage in…

The goals of visual literacy experiences are to give the student skill in "reading" visuals and in expressing himself and communicating through visuals. (JH)

Evaluated was sequencing as a visual ability often deficient in dyslexic children through comparison of two methods of teaching reading with two third grade classes of girls. (DB)

The studies reported here examined the role of orthographic regularity and summed positional frequency in the perception of letter strings. College sophomores and sixth graders were asked to indicate whether or not a target letter was present in a six-letter string. Orthographic regularity and summed positional frequency were found to have no…

Described is a machine for teaching basic visual discrimination and reading skills to severely physically handicapped children. (CL)