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Hansen, Y. M. (1999). Visualization for thinking, planning and problem
solving. In R. Jacobson (Ed.), _Information design_ (p. 193-220).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Extensive discussion of how graphical displays of information help
people learn, both as groups and individuals. An advertisement for the
Graphical Tools system.
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Hansen seems to suggest that people have trouble adapting to dealing
with graphical info. I find this surprising since it is innate. Or at
least that's what I've been led to believe.
Supercomputing 2001 was very much about the graphical display of large
bodies of apparently random information. As Hansen says such displays
can reveal interrelationships and clustering previously unconsidered.
A common example is temperature or humidity in very large bodies of
air.
All of these discussions of representation roll back to synthesis and
integration.
It is apparent that this discussion is related to Damasio's version of
qualia as summarized by Ray at SC01. The graphical diagrams allow the
discernment of patterns which are resistant to discovery and definition
but are strongly inhered with meaning. From Hansen's text: "The mind
can sense an underlying order within an apparent chaos by detecting
emerging patterns, noting the repetition of an entity or concept, and
forming a category of something that has not yet been labeled. The
effect of a label is to eliminate and exclude whatever doesn't
fit..."
Here things get a bit difficult to keep straight because of imprecise
definitions. While I agree that a label is constraining, so too is a
category. A category eliminates burdensome detail and allows a handle
on a cluster of information.
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