panos@utcsri.UUCP (Panos Economopoulos) (01/09/86)
---------------------------------
The recent postings about the perception of numbers remind me
of a realization I had a few years ago regarding the way I (and others)
perceive `time'. Sometimes, friends and I would agree on the basic
visualization but would position ourselves differently (different
viewpoint). At other times, the visualization would be radically
different.
For example, I visualize the seasons as lying on a circle (actually a flat
torus) which is almost level but tilted a bit upwards. Winter
is on top, fall and spring to the left and right and summer at the bottom.
When I look at it I sit at about the end of summer and beginning of fall.
Another thing is the visualization of years. For example, when you hear
1960 or 1971 how do you visualize them with respect to 1985?
To me, it seems that years are on a line that passes in front of me
with the future being to the right. I seem to position myself to some distance
from the line and at about the present, and looking a bit backwards.
If I think of the present I change to the circular representation
even though I have to revolve a few times if I consider more than one year (:-)
When I think of the future, it seems that I sit on the line looking straight
ahead.
It would be interesting to hear from other people how they visualize or
otherwise perceive time.
Also, if anybody knows of any publiced studies on the subject I would be
interested in looking up the reference.
--
Panos Economopoulos
UUCP: {decvax,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,allegra,utzoo}!utcsri!panos
CSNET: panos@torontomwg@petrus.UUCP (Mark Garrett) (01/09/86)
++ > The recent postings about the perception of numbers remind me > of a realization I had a few years ago regarding the way I (and others) > perceive `time'. > For example, I visualize the seasons as lying on a circle (actually a flat > torus) which is almost level but tilted a bit upwards. Winter > is on top, fall and spring to the left and right and summer at the bottom. > When I look at it I sit at about the end of summer and beginning of fall. > Panos Economopoulos That's funny; that's how I see it too (more or less). I think the end of summer has become a natural orientation point because that is where every school year begins; and when, as children, we were most conscious that a new year was beginning, having come full circle once more. -Mark Garrett
jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) (01/11/86)
> > It would be interesting to hear from other people how they visualize or > otherwise perceive time. > Also, if anybody knows of any publiced studies on the subject I would be > interested in looking up the reference. > > Panos Economopoulos When I took a course on cultural anthropology, I read about a tribe in which the people visualized themselves standing still, with the future at their backs and the past in front of them. Time, or the events of time, would move from behind them to in front of them. Their explanation was that we can see what has already happened, but not what is going to happen. This is almost the exact opposite of the typical visualization in this country: we talk about marching forward into the future. Most Americans (and Europeans, I would guess) visualize themselves as moving, with the future in front of them and the past behind them. -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..." {amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff {ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff
steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (01/12/86)
> > > > It would be interesting to hear from other people how they visualize or > > otherwise perceive time. > > Also, if anybody knows of any publiced studies on the subject I would be > > interested in looking up the reference. > > Panos Economopoulos > > When I took a course on cultural anthropology, I read about a tribe in which > the people visualized themselves standing still, with the future at their > backs and the past in front of them. [Thus the past is in front of them and the future behind them] > Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) "Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakeoff (the noted linguist) discusses this and how we represent abstract things in general. Jeff's example is there along with many others. Numbers, time, and such are abstract and do not exist in the world we share with others. In order to "understand" such things we need some sort of an internal representation. We select something that "stands for" the abstract thing. Since time, numbers, and so on are not things we can look at, point to, and say: "it looks like that", we have to make up our own representation. The representation is not necessesarily a picture, though about 85% of Americans use pictures (though the pictures are different). -- scc!steiny Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 109 Torrey Pine Terrace Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 (408) 425-0382
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (01/16/86)
> > The recent postings about the perception of numbers remind me > > of a realization I had a few years ago regarding the way I (and others) > > perceive `time'. > > For example, I visualize the seasons as lying on a circle (actually a flat > > torus) which is almost level but tilted a bit upwards. Winter > > is on top, fall and spring to the left and right and summer at the bottom. > > When I look at it I sit at about the end of summer and beginning of fall. > > That's funny; that's how I see it too (more or less). I think the end > of summer has become a natural orientation point because that is where > every school year begins; and when, as children, we were most conscious > that a new year was beginning, having come full circle once more. This may seem weird, but I visualize monthly and yearly time as stretched out on steps of 6 months each, sort of like: Feb Jan (1986) Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan (1985) Nov Dec And I have NO visualization of seasons - just years and months. ==> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <== ==> UUCP {decvax|dual|rocksanne|rocksvax|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <== ==> VOICE 716/741-9185 {rice|shell}!baylor!/ <== ==> FAX 716/741-9635 {G1, G2, G3 modes} duke!ethos!/ <== ==> seismo!/ <== ==> "Have you hugged your cat today?" ihnp4!/ <==
msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (01/18/86)
What follows is from Rudolf Flesch's 1951 book "The Art of Clear Thinking". Posted by Mark Brader, a nonvisualizer. * * | | Bernard Shaw, who considered himself a teacher rather than an entertainer, | always insisted that he wrote his plays so that people would read his | prefaces. There, in the prefaces, is the theory behind the action on | the stage. How, for instance, does Shaw account for Saint Joan's visions? | The preface has the answer: | | > Joan was what Francis Galton and other modern investigators of | > human faculty call a visualizer. She saw imaginary saints just | > as some other people see imaginary diagrams and landscapes with | > numbers dotted about them, and are thereby able to perform feats | > of memory and arithmetic impossible to non-visualizers. | | Now who was Francis Galton and what is a visualizer? The answer makes | rather an interesting story. | | Sir Francis Galton was a 19th-century scientific jack-of-all-trades, | a cousin of Charles Darwin, an explorer, meteorologist, anthropologist, | and psychologist, the founder of the science of eugenics, and the man | who is responsible for the general use of fingerprinting. In 1883 | he published a book, "Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development" | --a grand hodgepodge of miscellaneous fascinating information, from a | description of a high-pitched dog whistle Galton invented to a poker-faced | statistical study of prayer, particularly in the case of monarchs stricken | with illness. Among all these things, the book contained a long section | on "mental imagery", the first study of this kind anybody had ever done. | | What Galton was after was very simple. He wanted to know what kind | of pictures people carried in their heads, and so he wrote to a number | of his scientific friends and asked what they saw when they thought of | an object. ("Suppose it is your breakfast table as you sat down to it | this morning.") | | The results of this survey flabbergasted Galton. Most of his friends | wrote back that they didn't see a thing and asked what in the world he | was talking about. | | After this complete letdown by his fellow scientists, the bewildered | Galton turned to "persons whom I met in general society". They made | him feel much better. | | > Many men and a yet larger number of women, and many boys and girls, | > declared that they habitually saw mental imagery, and that it was | > perfectly distinct to them and full of colour ... They described | > their imagery in minute detail, and they spoke in a tone of surprise | > at my apparent hesitation in accepting what they said ... Reassured | > by this happier experience I recommenced to inquire among scientific | > men, and soon found scattered instances of what I sought ... | | After some more research, Galton found that pictures in the mind's eye | are quite common among most people, but highly uncommon among scientists | and abstract thinkers in general. He concluded that deep thinkers | consider mental pictures a nuisance and get rid of all this imagery | by disuse. | | But Galton didn't stop at collecting mental pictures of breakfast tables. | While he was at it, he also asked people how they saw numbers, the days | of the week, the months of the year and the alphabet. | | The answers he got make a weird collection. | [ But to see them, you'll have to find Flesch's book, which makes very interesting reading. (There, now this is a review so I can quote it.) It was reissued some years ago in a uniform set with two books on how to write, by the same author, which are also well worth reading and full of humor. Or I suppose you could find Galton's book. --msb] | | ... Sir Flinders Petrie, the famous archaeologist ... calmly informed | Galton that he habitually worked out "sums" with an imaginary slide | rule. He simply set it the desired way and mentally read off the result. | [ After enumerating more examples, Flesch remarks: ] | | All this will seem strange to you if you are one of the majority | of nonvisualizers -- or familiar if you are a visualizer like me. | (My year is a little like Mr. Blackman's, only it stands miraculously | on the tip of the oval; also it's black and white since I am color blind.)