Cultural conventions of pictorial representation: Iconic literacy and education

The interpretation of visual images is learned. Styles of depiction are rooted in cultural milieus within which they have agreed-upon meanings. An image cannot be expected to convey the same information outside its milieu. Several illustrations in this article give the reader a chance to test his or her own culture perceptions. To Westerners living in a “ carpentered ” environment, an optical illusion will make one line seem longer than another of egual length, A forest dweller first observing large objects at a distance may believe them to be much smaller, because the limited range of vision in a forest does not require adjustment for distance when judging size. While perception is conditioned by environment, the two-dimensional visual image is characterized by iconic conventions that are culturally mediated. Awareness of the strengths as well as the limitations of particular conventions can help educators use visual images more effectively in cross-cultural contexts. A formative research model is proposed for this purpose     

Multimodal texts in Higher Education and the implications for writing pedagogy

Although studies on writing pedagogy and academic literacies have examined changing genres in tertiary education, there has not necessarily been an emphasis on how a range of modes and media have influenced texts in various disciplines. This paper explores the influence and incorporation of the visual into student texts in Higher Education, looking at the semiotic weighting of modes, conventions and functions of images, visual / verbal linkages and visual composition. These aspects of multimodal texts have implications for the ways in which we teach ‘academic literacies’ practices and writing as multimodal composition to students.     

《视频制作与处理》课程融入视觉素养培养的探讨

文章分析视觉素养的内涵,尝试通过《视频制作与处理》这一课程进行行动研究,实现理论与实践、技术与艺术的有效融合,让学生在领略数字视频制作魅力的同时,培养和提升学生的视觉素养。     

施蛰存、胡风期刊编辑策略比较论略

施蛰存和胡风都是中国现代出版史上取得了突出成就的期刊编辑家,对其期刊编辑策略进行比较研究,很有理论和现实意义：施蛰存、胡风在刊物定位、作者选择等方面的取向截然不同,却同样走向了成功,这昭示着我们不能墨守成规,而应解放思想,审时度势,根据具体情况确定刊物的具体发展路径;而他们在自觉的事业追求、活泼的编排形式、明确的服务意识等方面的共同之处,则是编辑人应该永远学习借鉴的。     

Towards an Analysis of Visual Images in School Science Textbooks and Press Articles about Science and Technology

This paper aims at presenting the application of a grid for the analysis of the pedagogic functions of visual images included in school science textbooks and daily press articles about science and technology. The analysis is made using the dimensions of content specialisation (classification) and social-pedagogic relationships (framing) promoted by the images as well as the elaboration and abstraction of the corresponding visual code (formality), thus combining pedagogical and socio-semiotic perspectives. The grid is applied to the analysis of 2819 visual images collected from school science textbooks and another 1630 visual images additionally collected from the press. The results show that the science textbooks in comparison to the press material: a) use ten times more images, b) use more images so as to familiarise their readers with the specialised techno-scientific content and codes, and c) tend to create a sense of higher empowerment for their readers by using the visual mode. Furthermore, as the educational level of the school science textbooks (i.e., from primary to lower secondary level) rises, the content specialisation projected by the visual images and the elaboration and abstraction of the corresponding visual code also increases. The above results have implications for the terms and conditions for the effective exploitation of visual material as the educational level rises as well as for the effective incorporation of visual images from press material into science classes.     

Negotiating Cross-cultural Education in the Visual Arts

This paper looks at the problems posed by a Eurocentric Visual Arts education in Australia. It illustrates the cultural circumstances that created an environment sympathetic to a move away from an Euro-American cultural emphasis towards a more Asian centred programme. It describes how the Western Australian School of Visual Arts chose a conceptual model appropriate to the task of re-aligning the objectives and content of the teaching of visual art theory at the School. The debates considered essential to the development of a course of study appropriate to the evolving of a post-colonial, multi-cultural Australia are examined. The benefits and problems of the Modernist agenda in Australia are discussed alongside proposals that promote understanding of cultural difference. The intention is to produce graduates who are aware of the relevance of cross cultural negotiation in contemporary Australian art and design practice, and who have a familiarity with current theoretical models of cross cultural negotiation and exchange.     

Visual stimulation using microcomputers

ABSTRACT

The dominant approach to the education of young visually handicapped children currently hinges on the idea of encouraging the use of sight through visual stimulation. This takes various forms, including the optimization of the child's visual environment, training children to use their sight efficiently, and photo‐stimulation to alter the early development of the brain. It is argued that microcomputers have an important part to play in providing visual stimulation. VDU monitors can present materials in a ‘back‐lit’ manner, avoiding the problem of occlusion of the light source. Moreover, input devices such as the touch‐sensitive screen allow children to interact directly with the images on the computer screen, ensuring that the visual stimulus received is related to their own actions.     

屏性视觉媒介的自身特质及其伦理价值反思

分析视觉主导的文化,分析异彩纷呈的图形图像,离不开它的主流承载媒介——屏性媒介。与传统纸质媒介不同,屏性媒介具有混合性、整合性、技术性、直观性、浅白性、新感性等多项视觉特质。由此引发的价值建构、人的主体性合理关照、文化隐喻的深度考量和伦理价值的设计与规范等问题亟待我们对其进行深度反思。屏性媒介主导下的视觉艺术形式只有超越现实的功利境界和审美境界,在媒介素养教育中将技术理性和人文理性结合起来,寻求功利审美伦理和谐统一,才能使屏性媒介为人类和社会发挥应有的作用。     

Student Visual Communication of Evolution

Despite growing recognition of the importance of visual representations to science education, previous research has given attention mostly to verbal modalities of evolution instruction. Visual aspects of classroom learning of evolution are yet to be systematically examined by science educators. The present study attends to this issue by exploring the types of evolutionary imagery deployed by secondary students. Our visual design analysis revealed that students resorted to two larger categories of images when visually communicating evolution: spatial metaphors (images that provided a spatio-temporal account of human evolution as a metaphorical “walk” across time and space) and symbolic representations (“icons of evolution” such as personal portraits of Charles Darwin that simply evoked evolutionary theory rather than metaphorically conveying its conceptual contents). It is argued that students need opportunities to collaboratively critique evolutionary imagery and to extend their visual perception of evolution beyond dominant images.     

视觉传达设计中的汉字再设计

汉字不只是视觉传达设计的符号元素之一,更是赋有中国特色设计的重要语汇。对汉字进行再设计是视觉传达设计中重要的课题。汉字设计造型中的形意表达是中华民族特有的传统文化思维和视觉方式的集中反映,体现了中国文化的厚重感与完美的审美意象结合。通过著名设计师的成功实例作品来分析汉字形意表达的民族传统和可能性,旨在唤起更多的视觉传达设计者重视汉字再设计的重要性。     

Transforming the Social Practices of Learning with Representations: A Study of Disciplinary Discourse

This study used an interactive dynamic simulation of action potential to explore social practices of learning among first year undergraduate biology students. It aimed to create a learning environment that fosters knowledge building discourse through working with multiple concept-specific representations. Three hundred and eighty-nine students and twenty-four tutors from different tutorial classes in Queensland, Australia participated in the study. Students were randomly allocated to two experimental groups and a comparison group. In the experimental groups, pairs of students used the interactive simulation to explore action potential. Only one of the experimental groups received instruction that modelled the scientific and visual language conventions of the representations within the simulation. In the comparison group, small groups of students used a traditional paper-based activity. Students across all groups were audio recorded using a think-aloud protocol while completing the group activity. Individual learning gains in the experimental groups and the comparison group were similar. However, the experimental groups showed a significantly greater frequency of knowledge construction discourse that included explanatory answers, evaluations, interpretation, testing and synthesis compared to the comparison group, indicating a deeper understanding of action potential. Analysis of misconceptions on the post-test and tutors’ reflections revealed that the experimental group receiving instruction modelling the scientific and visual language conventions around the representations had a better grasp of the terminology associated with the concepts compared with the other groups. The findings suggest that instruction focussing on the language conventions of concept-specific representations fosters the development of disciplinary discourse by transforming students’ social practices of working with scientific knowledge.     

Visual symbol acquisition by students with autism

Abstract

Given the need to help develop communication skills in individuals with autism, an examination of visual symbol systems is critical. In this study, I focused on the exploration of a hierarchy of visual symbol systems that may aid practitioners in selecting more readily acquired symbol systems. Although evidence suggests that persons with cognitive disabilities attach meaning more readily to symbol systems that display higher levels of iconicity, it is not clear that this same hierarchical progression exists for persons with autism. I used a modified multiple baseline with four students with autism, ranging in ages from 7 to 13 years, to investigate the number of trials to criterion for five visual symbol sets: (a) photopictorial, (b) rebus, (c) Blissymbolics, (d) orthography, and (e) Premack‐type tokens. All four students reached criterion with fewer trials in systems that had a higher degree of iconicity.     

视疲劳的临床研究

目的:分析视疲劳发生的原因及临床特点.方法:通过对103例视疲劳患者的病因、病史及症状特点进行临床分析.结果:视疲劳为多种因素所致,屈光不正、操作电脑终端、隐斜视等因素最常引起症状.视疲劳症状繁多,治疗方法因人而异.结论:视疲劳病因复杂、症状繁多,必须做详细的相关检查,全面分析,采取个性化的综合治疗.     

Doctoral Writing in the Visual and Performing Arts: Issues and Debates

Drawing from a larger study of doctorates in the visual and performing arts, we examine here the diversity of relations which can exist between the creative and written components of a doctoral thesis in these fields in terms of diversity of naming practices for these relations, institutional variation in guidelines and expectations, and fundamental functional roles for the respective components. By bringing together and highlighting key details in these debates and issues, this article provides a foundation for further studies in this complex area.     

论教育技术人员视觉文化素养的培养

随着大众传播媒体的迅速发展,图像成为当代的日常生活资源,信息、知识、艺术乃至生活愈来愈多的以视觉化的方式呈现出来。为了给学习者提供优质的视觉形象,教育技术人员应提高自身的视觉文化素养。该文介绍了视觉传播的兴起和发展,分析了视觉传播在教育技术中的作用,提出从视觉思维和视觉语言创作两个方面来提高教育技术人员的视觉文化素养。     

Visual processing during mathematical problem solving

This study investigated, in the context of mathematical problem solving by secondary school students, the nature of the visual schemata which Johnson (1987) hypothesises mediate between logical propositional structures and rich specific visual images. Four groups of grade 10 students were studied, representing all combinations of high and low operational ability in mathematics (equivalent to Johnson's logical propositional structures) and high and low vividness of visual imagery (corresponding to Johnson's rich images). The results suggested first, that success at problem solving was related to logical operational ability, but not to vividness of visual imagery. Second, a variety of visually based strategies were used during problem solving which differed in their level of generality and abstraction, and use of these strategies appeared related to either logical operational ability or vividness of visual imagery, depending on their level of abstraction. The results supported Presmeg's (1992b) continuum of abstraction of image schemata.Throughout the paper, the first High or Low denotes logical operational ability, and the second, vividness of visual imagery.     

视觉学习研究进展

随着图像化技术和电子媒体的发展,视觉学习也逐步发展为学习科学的一个研究分支,得到研究人员和教育工作者的广泛关注。基于此,作者试图对视觉学习的相关研究进行梳理和总结。文章首先对视觉学习的内涵及其研究的发展和目标进行概述;接着梳理了视觉学习研究的主要内容,包括视觉学习的基本过程、视觉学习的符号系统、基于视觉学习的教学研究、视觉化技术的教育应用等四个方面,并对其研究成果以及相关典型案例进行了介绍;最后,文章还评析了视觉学习研究的特点及其对我国视觉学习研究的启示。     

视像艺术的幻像

当下文学艺术的优势地位已经丧失。电影，电视等视觉艺术垄断了大众的文化消费。主要原因在于视像艺术的直接性，被动跟从性消费性和震惊性效果等特点，远比间接的，主动参与性的文字艺术欣赏起来要省力得多，而且视像艺术画面的震惊效果更是文学艺术无法比拟的。因为视像艺术的形象是直接的，从而给演员提供了直接向受众展示自身魅力的机会，继而引发追星效应，明显是视像艺术特有的产物。因为视像艺术受商业利益的驱动，从而赞成了作品的类型比，低俗化和缺少 艺术品位，所以视像艺术要提高品位，必须借鉴优秀文学作品的创作手法。     

Supervising the text

The paper addressed to supervisors of ethnographic research is intended to be a contribution to debates on the training of qualitative researchers. It is argued that research training in the ethnographic tradition should include a critical awareness of the tasks of writing ethnographic accounts. Both the novice and the experienced researcher need to acquaint themselves with the range of available literary and rhetorical conventions. They need to inculcate an understanding of the analytic implications of alternative textual devices.