Theseessays had a pretty large impact on how I go about learning mathematics, I always had an easier time when formulas or arguments could be mapped onto visual structure. In-fact, before writing this comment (and in general when constructing arguments) I imagined a mind map containing all the relevant ideas and relations I wanted to portray. I am now (somewhat poorly) attempting to translate my 3-D visual argument into a linear verbal one.
Something else to be noted is visual reasoning and complementarycognitive artifacts seem to go hand in hand. Consider that learning to use an abacus can allow someone to simulate an abacus in their mind and produce the outputs of an abacus without needing to actually have one. A similar thing can be done with a slide rule. This practice can also produce other, positiveeffects on certain parts of cognition*.
I would be surprised if the skill of being able to construct complementary cognitive artifacts wasn’t potentially helpful in many domains. I don’t know how one would go about learning this, but it seems like something to consider as having positive value if investigated.
*Those papers are the first things that came up with a google search. So I reserve the right to be wrong about the exact consequences.
These essays had a pretty large impact on how I go about learning mathematics, I always had an easier time when formulas or arguments could be mapped onto visual structure. In-fact, before writing this comment (and in general when constructing arguments) I imagined a mind map containing all the relevant ideas and relations I wanted to portray. I am now (somewhat poorly) attempting to translate my 3-D visual argument into a linear verbal one.
Something else to be noted is visual reasoning and complementary cognitive artifacts seem to go hand in hand. Consider that learning to use an abacus can allow someone to simulate an abacus in their mind and produce the outputs of an abacus without needing to actually have one. A similar thing can be done with a slide rule. This practice can also produce other, positive effects on certain parts of cognition*.
I would be surprised if the skill of being able to construct complementary cognitive artifacts wasn’t potentially helpful in many domains. I don’t know how one would go about learning this, but it seems like something to consider as having positive value if investigated.
*Those papers are the first things that came up with a google search. So I reserve the right to be wrong about the exact consequences.