The resignation of the attending physicians at the lack of interest and confusion of their patients can be traced back to their ignorance of brain functions. Today, however, it can no longer be justified if the development of children’s visual ability, visual imagination and representation skills continues to be largely based on ready-made images. It is not enough for the images to be shown in film sequences or explained competently in language. In this respect, it is like books, whose characters only convey something to us to the extent that we can relate them to our lived experience.

On the other hand, pictures and films are just as indispensable as books for the development of spatial-visual skills, intelligence and participation in modern societies. However, we must first learn to see like a language skill before we can tap into the information potential of the natural and socio-cultural environment. We need a permanent response to our linguistic utterances, regardless of whether they are descriptive or verbal, so that the learning process can develop.

No one can explain this to us as clearly as blind children, who still have to learn to see after eye surgery. Unlike us, however, they are constantly aware of how much they rely on all their senses and independent experience.

Publication “The formation of spatial-visual competence”

Der Beitrag Multisensory perception erschien zuerst auf Farbpsychologie.

The information potential of an environmental situation only provides us with a negligible proportion of the knowledge required for interpretation. As soon as we see more than a structured “carpet” of color and brightness differences, we move virtually in our own imaginary space. Without our visual knowledge, we perceive a phenomenal space. The experience and behavior of people born blind after surgery shows how this space of appearance is gradually structured in our imagination. We are seeing more and more signs that refer to content and indicate action contexts.

The development of vision is based on our visual knowledge structure, which adapts to the requirements of the communication process with the environment throughout our lives. The vivid imagination, which allows us to transfer knowledge to comparable situations, plays a key role here. The spatiotemporal, gestural, typological, topological and perspectival structuring of our visual knowledge allows us to orient ourselves in the process of perception and imagination. The statements of people who were born blind or have undergone surgery clearly show that spatial-visual competence interacts with the formation of a vivid language and description system. This opens up an unlimited space for us to think and act, which we can use to understand and shape our living environment.

Publication “The formation of spatial-visual competence”

Der Beitrag Imagination as the basis for freedom of thought and action erschien zuerst auf Farbpsychologie.