How to learn to see with the brain. Review of the book "Visual Thinking" by Dan Roem

    They say that in life it is enough to read one book ... but to find it, you will have to re-read several hundred others. “Visual thinking: how to“ sell ”your ideas with visual images” is just that one book. It will be interesting and useful to everyone who is interested in visualization, art, perception, and the characteristics of their own thinking. Despite the word “sell” in the title, the book is much broader than a description of business processes or sales methods, and this makes it universal. She will answer dozens of complex (theoretical) questions, teach (in practice) to look, see, imagine and show. You can understand a lot from the book, read and re-read, study illustrations (good, simple illustrations) and find something amazing every time.

    I will list 5 of my finds

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    The main task of the author is to teach solving problems with the help of visual thinking. More precisely, not to teach, but to recall the natural natural ability to see a picture, imagine, develop images and draw conclusions on this basis.

    To solve this problem, Dan Roem suggests going through all the stages of visual thinking :

    • finding an idea (how to improve the ability to look and see)
    • development of an idea (how to see specific images that are used to solve a problem in all visual information),
    • popularization (how to show your drawings to other people).

    These stages turned out to be the first find in the book. I was struck by how simple everything is arranged and how this mechanism works in practice (by the way, the author is 100% oriented towards practice and does not provide any "extraneous" information).

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    These stages are the basis of the composition of the book :

    Part One “Solving problems by visualizing them”: introduction to the essence of the issue, the mechanism of visual thinking. The second part is “Rules and tools of visual thinking” (stages to see, see); the third is “The practice of applying visual thinking in business” (imagine stage) and the fourth is “Popularization of ideas” (display stage). The appendix - “Scientific Foundations of Visual Thinking” - turned out to be no less interesting than the content of the book.

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    My second find was the idea that“The success of visual thinking does not depend on artistic talent or education . Many colleagues (teachers) do not use a powerful tool for visualizing information in their work, fearing that they cannot draw. And now I find a remedy against these fears (and the author proves it several times throughout the book): "visual thinking is primarily the ability to think . " The main thing is to gather information, focus, develop an idea, after which the stage of the show will be simple and natural.

    Dan Roem , the holder of degrees in the field of art and biology, leads the reader along the path that our brain goes through, perceiving visual images.

    First, we look at the data, at the maximum amount of information collected. Then, we begin to select the necessary objects, "peer".

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    At this stage (find number 3), we learn that all problems (their visual embodiment) can be described by answering six questions. All that we see around is 6 categories: who / what, how much, where, when, how and why . People by nature are in this framework, our eyes and brain analyze everything in the world, fitting into the framework of time and space. The mechanism is obvious if you watch the children, but eventually forgotten by adults. But it always works.

    The speed of vision and visual processing of information is explained by "pre-cognitive processing of information" (the brain already sees and processes it, but we still do not realize it). Upon seeing an object, the brain determines who or what it is (living, dangerous, edible, moving, etc.), then how much it is (many or one), where it is (far, close, vertically, horizontally) when (what something will happen to the object or to us), how it is arranged and why it will happen (or not, reasons).

    The author claims that at the “viewing” stage one
    of the 6 main questions needs to be answered . The success of the development of the image and its display, that is, the explanation of the idea to other people, will depend on this.

    So, visual reproduction of the situation helps to understand the reasons for what is happening.

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    After we focused our vision (and the brain) on a specific object, we chose the question that interests us the most (for example, asking the question “who?”, We analyze all the information about the significant qualities of the object in order to make it as clear as possible “portrait”) . The more information collected, the clearer and more accurate we will be able to answer the necessary question, “pulling up” all relevant facts and data.

    The advantage of images over words in the speed of their processing is that the brain is more familiar with the figurative form of information processing. So we can change the combination of objects, sequence, relationships with other objects and immediately “see” the answer to the question of interest to us.

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    The collected (depicted) data and their focused consideration trigger the process of imagination (the third stage of visual thinking). This is the moment of discovery, "eureka." There is an opportunity to see (predict) something that is not immediately visible: reasons, patterns, relationships, trends, deviating data, outstanding objects or qualities, etc.

    Passing on the "pure" ideas of the author, I did not note that the author illustrates these ideas with examples from life, describes situations and problems (mainly from business) that could be solved with the help of drawings.

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    Having seen what was hidden in the flow of information, we can show it to others. And prove using a visual language that is understandable and close to everyone from birth. Moreover, "the success of visual thinking of a problem does not depend on artistic talent or education." The main thing is to rely on the six issues listed above. The fourth finding is the correspondence of the types of drawings to the answers to these questions - portrait, block diagram, map, time line, diagram and graph with variable parameters . We can express the whole variety of problems with the help of 6 types of drawings!

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    To effectively show their ideas to people, it is enough to focus on the answer to one of these questions (on a question that is interesting to the audience) and use the appropriate type of drawing (infographic). This will be a perfect match of information and the form of its expression. Showing ideas in a natural, natural, fast and understandable way for other people.

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    Original title of the book “ The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures"-" The reverse side of the napkin: solving problems and selling ideas using drawings. " The author talks about drawing his ideas anywhere and anytime, for example, on the back of a napkin when meeting with business partners in a cafe. It proves that anyone can draw, because all the images consist of simple, basic elements - a circle, square, line (arrow), triangle.

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    Despite the fact that the book is about drawing, the method of working with images is more than universal. It is implemented in a diagram, infographic, training or promotional video, presentation of ideas, etc. The fifth find for me was the process of showing a drawing, demonstrating. Making a beautiful visual image is not enough. You need to demonstrate it correctly. And the completion of the visualization - the show - again corresponds to the stages of visual thinking, which is spoken out before the audience as the author of the visual idea went through it - where he looked, saw what he imagined and what it all means (how or why it works).

    The sources of information are described (authority, a sufficient amount), the boundaries, coordinate axes, criteria for evaluating the object are indicated, then the attention of the audience focuses on the subject of analysis (deviations from the average values, outstanding qualities of the object) and on what this speaks of, how it helps to solve the problem . A simple display of the highest quality, sophisticated image can do nothing. It is necessary to "look out loud."

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    There are many other great ideas in Visual Thinking. For example, three types of visual viewers:

    • “Black pen” (1/4 of the entire audience, draw from scratch, like visual metaphors),
    • “Yellow pen” (1/2 audience, complement and highlight something in the picture, emphasize, note interesting aspects, comment)
    • “Red pen” (1/4 of the audience, criticize, redraw, like facts and figures).

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    A series of questions for working out the image is “visual equalizer” (simplicity or detail, quality or quantity, vision or execution, comparison or individual characteristics, status quo or change).

    And much more, which there is no point in talking about, this can be understood only by reading the book on your own. I just tossed five sparkling gold coins one after another to show the way to a real treasure chest. The main discovery for me in this book turned out to be in tune with the ideas of other legendary visual thinkers (artists, researchers): the key to everything is the ability to watch and see, contemplation.

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