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In the Mind's Eye was written by Thomas G. West and
published in May 1991 by Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York.
Now in its fourth printing, the book is currently being
translated by Kodansha Scientific for a 1994 Japanese language
edition. In the Mind's Eye deals with visual thinkers,
creativity, computer graphics, recent neurological research
and gifted persons with learning difficulties -- examining the
role of visual-spatial strengths and verbal weaknesses in the
lives of ten historical persons, including Albert Einstein,
Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Sir Winston Churchill,
Gen. George Patton and William Butler Yeats. A special focus
is the way major changes in computer visualization
technologies promise to gradually transform education and the
workplace -- greatly increasing the perceived value of
visualization talents and skills, while traditional verbal and
text-memorization skills may come to be perceived as less
important.
In connection with In the Mind's
Eye, the author has been invited to provide presentations
for many diverse groups in the U.S. and overseas, including
the National Institutes of Health Image Processing
Group, the Association for Computing Machinery graphics
special interest group (ACM SIGGRAPH), the European
computer graphics society (Eurographics), the Orton
Dyslexia Society, the University of Pennsylvania
Graduate School of Education, the first conference of the new Netherlands
Design Institute in Amsterdam, a conference in
Goettingen, Germany, for computer users and research
scientists from some 50 Max Planck Institutes, the
Fraunhofer Institute for Computer *EXIT* Graphics in
Darmstadt, the Washington Society for the History of
Medicine, the visualization group of the MITRE
Corporation, the Charles and Helen Schwab
Foundation and the Board of Regents of the National
Library of Medicine. In addition, the author has visited
Western Australia to give a series of talks at the invitation
of the Dyslexia SPLED Foundation in Perth -- a trip
that included additional meetings and interviews in Sydney,
Melbourne and Singapore.
Current speaking engagements include a conference of the
British and European Dyslexia Associations in
Manchester, England, along with a series of talks for The
Arts Dyslexia Trust and the Dyslexia Institute in
London. The author has been invited to be keynote speaker for
the Neuhaus Education Foundation, Houston, Texas, for
the Illinois Branch of the Orton Dyslexia Society and
for a National Forum on Disabled New Students sponsored
by the University of South Carolina.
A paper entitled "Visual Thinkers in an Age of Computer
Visualization" was published in the August 1993
Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH. "A Return to Visual
Thinking" has been published in the November 1992 issue of
Computer Graphics World. A paper presented at an
international conference in Barcelona, Spain, has been
included as a chapter in the book: Interactive Learning
Through Visualization, published in Heidelberg, Germany,
by Springer-Verlag in July 1992. Another paper, "A Future
of Reversals," was published in the 1992 Annals of
Dyslexia.
Prior to writing In the Mind's Eye, the author worked
with engineering and consulting organizations involved with
computer software design, energy research and international
trade. He has been responsible for managing a technology
transfer and training program for the government of Egypt,
sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International
Development. He has also participated in program
development and overseas trade missions for the U.S.
Departments of Energy and Commerce. These activities and
related work have involved periodic travel to the Middle East
and the Far East. Based in Washington, D.C., the author holds
graduate and undergraduate degrees in international relations,
literature and philosophy. He learned of his own dyslexia at
the age of 41. From a family of artists and engineers, he has
long been interested in the connections between mixed
abilities, technological change, creativity and visual
thinking in various occupational and cultural settings.
From: Thomas G. West
summary of :
In the Mind's Eye
Visual Thinkers, Gifted People with Learning Difficulties,
Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity
1 Slow Words, Quick Images: an Overview
Historically, some of the most original thinkers in
the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, and other
areas relied heavily on visual modes of thought, employing
images instead of words or numbers. Some of these same
thinkers show evidence of a striking range of learning
problems, including difficulties with reading, spelling,
writing, calculation, speaking and memory.
Recent neurological research suggests that some forms
of early brain growth tend to produce verbal and other
difficulties at the same time that they produce a variety of
exceptional visual and spatial talents.
Current developments in the use of graphics-oriented
personal computers and in scientific visualization through
high-speed supercomputers may be the initial phase in an
increasingly significant shift toward a greater emphasis on
visual approaches to the analysis of complex information and
away from an excessive emphasis on words, numbers and formulas
alone. It is suggested that this shift may greatly benefit
highly creative visual thinkers with learning difficulties --
because, in time, these creative visual thinkers may prove to
be among those best suited to deal with the major new
directions of development promoted by this shift.
The maturational lags often seen in dyslexics and
"late bloomers" may yield higher levels of neurological and
intellectual capacity than in those who mature rapidly. Thus,
some of those students who have the most difficulty in early
schooling can sometimes do surprisingly well at higher levels
of education (those for whom the "easy" is hard and the "hard"
is easy). These same individuals may be far more creative and
productive in later life than those with "ordinary" brains,
however bright and well organized. On the other hand, some
apparently highly precocious students may turn out to be
especially ill-suited to do truly original creative work.
There is evidence that these early growth patterns can
be generators of great diversity in brain structure and
function. Many of those affected can be expected to show
highly heterogeneous forms of learning difficulties, as well
as a wide range of special talents. If properly identified and
developed, this great diversity may be profoundly beneficial
to the larger society.
2 Dyslexia and Learning Difficulties from the Inside
- In this chapter a composite picture of the
far-reaching life effects of dyslexia and other forms of
learning difficulties is provided from the personal accounts
of those affected, from actresses and psychologists to
physicians and Nobel prize-winning immunologists.
3 Constellations of Traits, Some Neurological
Perspectives
- In the context of current and historical neurological
research, this chapter further discusses the great range of
possible traits and the manner in which the same traits may be
considered positive or negative depending upon different
social, economic and historical circumstances.
4 Profiles, Part 1: Faraday, Maxwell and Einstein
5 Profiles, Part 2: Dodgson, Poincar, Edison, Tesla and da
Vinci
6 Profiles, Part 3: Churchill, Patton and Yeats
- The varied difficulties and special talents of eleven
diverse visual thinkers are described to underscore the
variety of possibility. Extensive use is made of quotations
from letters, personal accounts, descriptions of curious
(apparently unimportant) traits by close observers and other
biographical materials. Emphasis is placed on paradoxical
combinations of traits such as writers who have difficulty
with reading and spelling, visual thinkers who have difficulty
with drawing, leaders who have difficulty with speaking,
mathematicians who have difficulty with simple calculation.
Some instances of a "late-blooming" pattern are also
described--in which highly productive work does not begin
until adulthood or even middle age but continues to be
increasingly significant and innovative through an advanced
age.
7 Speech and Nonverbal Thought
- Some mathematicians and scientists have reported that
their most creative work relies heavily on visual modes of
thought -- the mental manipulation and transformation of
images. However, they find that these modes of thought are
often extremely difficult to translate into words. In some
cases, those who seem to have difficulty with speech may
actually be struggling primarily with the difficult
translation of images to words. Consequently, sometimes the
most brilliant children and adults may not be able to respond
quickly to oral questions -- a pattern very confusing to
highly verbally-oriented teachers and professors. Traits
exhibited by highly creative mathematicians and scientists are
compared with similar traits in children with recognized
learning disabilities.
8 Patterns in Creativity
- This chapter outlines the important role in creative
thought of a number of traits that are sometimes associated
with learning difficulties: a preference for visual-spatial
modes of thought; a special facility in the use of analogy and
metaphor; a propensity to see the whole rather than the parts;
a flexible readiness for the unexpected; an ability to link
apparently unrelated things.
9 Images, Computers and Mathematics
- Contemporary mathematicians are coming to see their
discipline less as a matter of symbol manipulation and logical
rigor and more as a science of patterns. After nearly a
century of disuse, visual approaches to mathematics are
returning to favor in some circles, but not without
resistance. These fundamental changes may, in time,
increasingly favor the special skills of many visual thinkers.
The limits of certain traditional mathematical approaches are
discussed along with possible alternative methods for teaching
mathematics to certain kinds of students.
10 Patterns, Implications, Possibilities
- Appropriate use of highly visual approaches in
education and work could possibly yield powerful results
(sometimes in those from whom the least might otherwise have
been expected). Certain creative visual thinkers, whose
academic difficulties have in the past often resulted in
hiding certain talents or in exclusion from conventional
educational advancement, could be a major source of productive
innovation in a number of emerging new fields.
- With the innovative use of interactive graphic
computers at all levels, education could increasingly involve
learning from simulations of reality rather than from books
and lectures. Such a major change might favor many visual
thinkers and might work against those who have mainly
traditional academic skills.
A GALLERY OF IMAGES
- A set of 42 photographs, portraits, drawings,
facsimile handwritten letters and other materials is provided
to graphically support the discussions.
In the Mind's Eye by Thomas G. West was published in
May 1991 by Prometheus Books, 700 East Amherst Street,
Buffalo, New York 14215-1674; telephones: 716-837-2475
(editorial) or 800-421-0351 (book orders). The book is in its
fourth printing and is currently being translated by Kodansha
Scientific for a Japanese language edition which is scheduled
to be published in April 1994. The ISBN identifier for the
book is: 0-87975-646-2. The author can be reached on MCI
electronic mail: 4139461@mcimail.
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