VSL Discussion at ToT (cont.)

Maureen M
Member # 452
posted 29 September 2002

Gord, there are some VSL people who can picture things like math that they are supposed to be so bad at in there heads. My ds is a very visual, or right-brained learner. He can picture numbers in his head and he adds multiplies and divides all in his head. He can do very complicated problems, but only after he makes a picture of it in his head. He cannot, for example, do the work for a long division problem, but he can tell you the answer with remainders and all. He can check the answers, know they will be right, but he cannot show the work or steps that go into it. An example to help right-brained people do math is Louis Sacher’s book Sideways Arithmetic from the wayside school. It is a very visual way to do basic algebra.

I personally thing algebra is a very right brained adventure anyway but that is my personal opinion. I never understood why so many people think that math is a farmer trait, I think it is very much a hunter trait, like how so many computer programmers are diagnosed ADHD and they are all math wizzes imho. I do not think the establishment thinks in numbers as much as our hunters do. Hunters think in the abstract, and abstract is algebra to me.


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Ric
Member # 557
posted 29 September 2002

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It has been established as fact
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Established in what way, by who and where? As a “fact” does it stand unopposed?

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children who have the most difficulty in our present learning environment are predominantly visual learners.
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Barring the stationary lecturer, how is this meaningful considering that vision is a part of almost all learning? Multi-modal teaching has been around for a couple of decades or more now. The problem I see is that too many teachers are too disorganized (lacking in left brain skills) to properly sequence instruction. It is easy to see how many kids come to prefer visual right brained thinking simply because they haven’t had good sequential thinking modeled for them. To overcome the chaos that results from 30 kids in a small room improperly guided by a disorganized teacher, the teacher, no matter how enlightened their teacher instruction was, resorts to brute force and simplistic ideas of order because her/his sequencing skills are primitive. Kids that are pushed around will respond with a wide variety of behaviors that this teacher will not be able to deal with. I don’t think it is far fetched to consider that visual learners are made, not born. After all, which made the most sense, what they were told to do or what they saw happening?

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This is the right-brained children being taught in a left-brained environment scenario.
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Is it? How do you know this? How do you witness the right brains of children? Is there a specific measure or examination tool that one uses to determine this? What left brain environment doesn’t exist in visual space? I view with some skepticism conclusions based on speculations about observations viewed through abstractions obtained from a theory abstracted from observations based on entirely different events designed to support an existing hypothesis. There is too much wiggle room for the result to be factual. Add the usual confusion of logical levels in the process and the conclusion reached borders on complete fantasy, a wish fulfillment.

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Left-brained thinkers (who are your farmer types;the establishment) think in numbers and highly structured patterns.
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Symbols and patterns can be and are represented visually. Even counting is usually done with visual or kinesthetic support.

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Right-brained thinkers are very creative, and process visual information best. They are abstract thinkers who go “outside the box” and find “regimen” very restrictive.
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It is interesting that you would consider numbers and highly structured patterns to not be highly abstract while things that one can actually see to be abstract.

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These are the very active children who seem to be always on the move and always asking questions.
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How does activity level have anything to do with hemispheric process? Type of activity maybe.

This either/or thinking seems to assume that everybody has a brain lesion separating the hemispheres or is missing half their brain. Why? Fact is they’re joined, in constant communication with each other and they cooperate, supporting each other’s activities. How does one go about separating the product of each half’s processing as it is evidenced in someone’s behavior? Visual navigation, for example, requires left brain sequencing or one would be forever lost trying to decide which way next. Why this static model of an active, fluid and complex system?

In the three months I have been on this board, I have yet to see an explanation of why ADHD is supposed to be VSL. All I have seen are assertions that it is. What is the nature of it’s activity that makes it so? What are the mechanics involved? I am beginning to form my own tentative hypothesis of the effect of laterality on attention but I would like to see what others think.

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Einstein being a well know example of this type of thinking but, did not show the need for physical action in his life. This is an example of either the mixing of the two, or the evolution beyond the Hunter-Farmer types.
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Einstein was an Aspie, a definite step forward in evolution. ;-)

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Seems like ..... that there is a continuum between very Open-faucet folks and very Closed-faucet folks. Of course most people should be in the middle.
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Welcome to the Continuum! Your host, Vaudree, Belle of the Bell curve.

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which is ADHD - the drain or the faucet? Either could be depending which fits your theory of ADHD better.
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How many faucets and sinks you talkin’ ‘bout here? Not to mention tap turners and plumbers and supervisors. And how many kinds of water?


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BenR
Member # 672
posted 29 September 2002

I think “visual thinking or learning” is a bad description of what the hunter mind does with stimuli. I would rather call it “creative modeling”. It isn’t just visual, it consists of all senses, visual is just the predominant one. Think of a 3 dimensional solid and focus on a single point in that solid, then zoom out so you are focusing on the solid from different angles. Add textures to the solid, add colored lightning, make the solid a human, add a face that is familiar. Add other stimuli like sounds and smells. Now, age the environment 50 years. You are building a replayable model of a series of events that have never happened. The more stimuli you can draw from, the more detailed and accurate the model will be. Teachers lecture in words that stream so slowly that the model takes what seems to be an infinite amount of time to build. How do you think Einstein derived the theory of relativity? He sure wasn’t thinking in words and symbols.


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Bonnie
Member # 141
posted 29 September 2002

I think the focus should be on spatial (global) vs. linear (sequential) thinking.


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Ric
Member # 557
posted 29 September 2002

Lately, I’ve been thinking of it as spacial/simultaneous vs. temporal/sequential. However, even time can be conceived in simultaneous units or durations, and space can be broken into temporal fragments as when one scans a page. This indicates to me that the function of one brain hemisphere is absolutely dependent on the function of the other. It also raises the question as to what the actual nature is of supposed hemispheric learning/thinking styles.


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Vaudree
Member # 203
posted 29 September 2002

I didn’t say it was a Belle Curve. Continuums can be lumpy and/or lopsided and I am not saying that one side is superior to the other side. Anyways a person is made up of more than just one continuum - even not assuming that things like gender, sex and sexual preference are all hypothesized to be continuous (rather than discrete) variables by somebody. However, others assume that these variables are dichotic (either/or).

Bonnie - which is primary and which is secondary - the drain or the faucet? And if we have more than one sense - shouldn’t we have more than one faucet? I mean like one for hearing, for seeing, for touch, for taste/smell, for the third eye etc. Then again - do we have more than one drain or do the faucets differ in the thickness of the liquid they emit?

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I think the focus should be on spatial (global) vs. linear (sequential) thinking.
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Think so too - but that labeling of sides only works if you are only dealing with auditory thinkers. Visual learners may not all be spatial (global) but none are linear (sequential) in the way that those terms are usually described. Zentall’s conceptualization of global versus detailed captures it a bit better in that detailed can be applied whether the person is primarily visual or auditory.


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Bonnie
Member # 141
posted 29 September 2002

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Barring the stationary lecturer, how is this meaningful considering that vision is a part of almost all learning?
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I still think most people are confusing the concept of visual spatial learning with “vision”. It’s more about visualization. I guess it’s hard to understand if you’re not a VSL.

I can close my eyes and visualize things in 3D. I can even visualize how different concepts and/or objects can be placed together in different ways to product different end results. Seeing things, (as in using my vision), is just the first step.

For a strong VSL - there are no absolutes because there are endless ways of arranging information by visualizing how the information can be put together. This can be exhausting for people who don’t think this way. And I think this is why we are often viewed as ADHD.


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Luke-Aspie Hunter
Member # 642
posted 29 September 2002

Your theory seems to make a lot of sense to me. I think maybe instead of categorizing the AH counterpart as VG or VSL, maybe collector would be more appropriate since most of the collector/hobbyists I’ve met tend to be big time visual/spatial learners.


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gord
Member # 675
posted 29 September 2002

I think Bonnie was right. Math facts and math concepts are different.

Any one can understand simple math, but unless you have the (right-brained) creativity, spacial awareness, and the abstract capability of Einstein, you will not understand quantum physics. Einstein was the first to be able too, hence, he is the evidence of evolution forward. And now many people understand, more evidence of evolution forward. And more evidence that it requires both sides of the brain to do our best thinking.

The reason visual thinking is the focus of many of the discussions on this subject is the fact that over the last 50 years, our society has grown in how much visual information our children are receiving compared to earlier years.

We have all kinds of TV and movies, computers and video games. This is why the mundane setting in our schools is so unfulfilling towards the needs of today’s children. It is like driving around in a fast car outside of school, and being forced to walk, while you are in school. The teachers are decades behind the evolution of our children’s needs.


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Bonnie
Member # 141
posted 29 September 2002

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Any one can understand simple math...
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I can’t. For me, math facts are void of any kind of context. In fact, I have a hard time relating written numbers to “amounts”. When it comes to math, “looking” at the number 10 is nothing more than looking at a line and a circle. I can’t process it because I have nothing to relate it to. I can’t “see” what is represented. So a simple math problem is a “problem” for me.

However, something like a geometry problem, where numbers and letters represent lines and angles, is a no-brainer.


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BenR
Member # 672
posted 29 September 2002

Something that I was considering while reading this. Does the brain process in serial or parallel? and if it is in parallel, what determines the bandwidth of the processing pathway. This could ultimately be the result of training of the hunter perception method. To process all the stimuli the brain opens additional pathways which allows for full time situation modeling. It would be hard to believe that when I build these models and manipulate them at such fast speeds that it is a serial process.


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Rick Aspie-Hunter
Member # 379
posted 29 September 2002

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Any one can understand simple math, but unless you have the (right-brained) creativity, spacial awareness, and the abstract capability of Einstein, you will not understand quantum physics... And more evidence that it requires both sides of the brain to do our best thinking.
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Gord, this statement is so full of false assumptions it borders on the absurd. I have previously argued that Einstein’s gift was not spatial abilities, but rather abstract thinking. I understand quantum physics (my undergraduate minor was physics), and yet I am spatially inept. Perhaps for most people, using “both sides of the brain” leads to their best thinking. For me, it does not.

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I view with some skepticism conclusions based on speculations about observations viewed through abstractions obtained from a theory abstracted from observations based on entirely different events designed to support an existing hypothesis.
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Ric, you’re a freakin’ genius! Your postings on this thread are so beautiful, they bring a tear to my eye. However, this particular sentence sets a new standard that even you hadn’t previously achieved - magnificent!


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BenR
Member # 672
posted 29 September 2002

I like Ric’s way of saying, “That is a bunch of BS”.


Luke-Aspie Hunter
Member # 642
posted 30 September 2002

Just to let you know my legal name is still Luke Mead but my public name here will from now on be Luke-Aspie Hunter. In my opinion the whole AH thing Ric has been writing about makes a lot of sense.


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Rick Aspie-Hunter
Member # 379
posted 30 September 2002

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Just to let you know my legal name is still Luke Mead but my public name here will from now on be Luke-Aspie Hunter.
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Welcome to the family, Luke. I should change my name to Obi-Wan Aspie-Hunter

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In my opinion the whole AH thing Ric has been writing about makes a lot of sense.
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Everything Ric writes makes sense, but I think that it’s Rick AH that has been writing about the AH-thing. Maybe I should change my name again - how about Ricardo José Aspie-Hunter?


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TrishaB
Member # 476
posted 30 September 2002

To add to the absurdity...

I understand Physics but I don’t get the geometry to spatial side. I work well on a two-plan/three-plane life surface but when you start getting into the sixth planes of space and the seventh point to go somewhere... my body gets resistant. I get the concepts but I want nothing to do with the thing we call Math behind it. I can accept the theory without the burden of the detailed proof.

Thus, I am not sure how one would define my spatial ability.

When in water I have always been able to tell “up from down” but I associate that ability to my presence of mind and connection to the earth. Put me in a plane at supersonic speeds using some navigation thingy to tell up from down and I am afraid my friends I would only pilot myself into oblivion. Without the reference point of a star and gravity... what is north and south in space? Where’s the middle? Is it expanding or converging to one point? If it expands that means it goes on forever but things become more separated and stagnate instead of collide and create. If it is converging, what’s on the other side of the black hole theory, does it all start over again like an inverted funnel?


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Rick Aspie-Hunter
Member # 379
posted 30 September 2002

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I can close my eyes and visualize things in 3D.
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Bonnie, it’s much more than that. You do this automatically, with no conscious thought or effort involved. I can visualize in 3D because I have lived in such a video/animation oriented society.

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For a strong VSL - there are no absolutes because there are endless ways of arranging information by visualizing how the information can be put together. This can be exhausting for people who don’t think this way.
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It’s because your brain gets so much information from your visual sense. Bonnie, you are literally the definition of VG (but not VSL which is a sloppy term).


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Bonnie
Member # 141
posted 30 September 2002

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it’s because your brain gets so much information from your visual sense.
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It isn’t just visual stimuli. All five of my senses are heightened. And some of my senses are even cross-wired. I have what some people call tactile defensiveness. Other people call it overexcitabilities. And still others would call me a highly sensitive person... From my POV - they’re all the same thing. But that’s just me.


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Ric
Member # 557
posted 30 September 2002

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Does the brain process in serial or parallel? and if it is in parallel, what determines the bandwidth of the processing pathway.
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Both. The serial processing would resemble computer processing with logic gates controlling inputs and outputs to various parts of the brain as well as feedback loops. Parallel processing would involve something called neural binding which causes neurons to fire in unison. This activity can be observed using an EEG.

Bandwidth? I can only guess. It should be variable depending on the number of neurons involved in a given location. Some processes will be localized while others will be diffuse. For example, as I understand it, an image, as we first apprehend it, is rapidly analyzed or dismantled by the brain into a collection of parts that match internal standards (shapes, colors...) some intrinsic, some in memory, coming from neurons spread out over a wide area of the brain. Another area of the brain mediates this activity remembering the locations of this particular neural activation configuration and associating it with other activities such as body status and emotion. When the image is recalled, the mediator calls on the the neurons that were previously mapped to fire rapidly in unison (approximately a thousand times a second). This recreates the image, actually reassembles it from abstractions, in the working memory, the view screen of consciousness, and the attention, when directed to, extends the number of repetitions beyond the original 20 to 100, creating and sustaining a conscious mental image.


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BenR
Member # 672
posted 01 October 2002

Does anyone here have the ability to correlate a spatial 3D model with a fixed grid allowing coordinate determination related strictly to where you perceive an object in the model? And, if you move the object, can you quickly determine it’s new coordinates anywhere in that space? Just curious.