An attention based theory to explore affordances of textual and diagrammatic proofs

Peter Coppin, James Burton, Stephen Hockema

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceeding with ISSN or ISBNConference contribution with ISSN or ISBNpeer-review

Abstract

Shimojima and Katagiri have demonstrated that diagrams reduce “inferential load” during reasoning by scaffolding visual-spatial aspects of memory. In response, we wondered why, if this is true, that proofs are usually text based? The purpose of this paper is to explore ergonomic affordances of text that may encourage its use in the communication of proofs by building on prior work in attention. We claim that textual notations may focus a reasoner’s “spotlight” of attention through serialized sequential chunks, whereas many diagrams may “diffuse” attention and that a diagrammatic notation system that serialized information in chunks amenable to focused attention could leverage the power of textual notations. We present such an example through a case study focused on generalized constraint diagrams, a visual logic with attributes that may support focused attention and extract ergonomic principles that may transcend each notation system.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDiagrams 2010: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on diagrammatic representation and inference
Place of PublicationBerlin, Heidelberg
PublisherSpringer
Pages271-278
Number of pages8
Volume6170
ISBN (Electronic)9783642146008
ISBN (Print)9783642145995
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2010
EventDiagrams 2010: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on diagrammatic representation and inference - Portland, Oregon, USA, 9-11 August, 2010
Duration: 1 Jan 2010 → …

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science

Conference

ConferenceDiagrams 2010: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on diagrammatic representation and inference
Period1/01/10 → …

Keywords

  • attention
  • visual thinking
  • proof
  • logic
  • geometry

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