Abstract:

Surrounded by images in a digitally enhanced modern world, the importance of the visual thinking has never been so great. Visual thinking is a bridge that crosses the divide between the perceptual and the rational; science and art; perception and thought. (Arnheim, 1997) comprehensively catalogued visual literacy as a complex language with levels of competence that can be learned, understood and assessed. Yet robust academic research into application, use in context and reasonable outcomes significantly lags behind that of any textual based language (Panzavolta et al., 2019). Amit et al., (2017), found, through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioural methods, that visual thinking is the dominant mode of thought and verbal thinking is activated only if it is needed. Although visual thinking is a high frequency volcabulary, there is still no consensus on the definition of visual thinking. This causes confusion between visual thinking and some similar concepts (i.e. visualization) and increased the difficulty of academic research on visual thinking to define the research scope.

This research explores what visual thinking is and how visual thinking plays a role in understanding and communication by examining the relationship between visual and verbal thinking in the group context. The term "the group context" is a general description of a context comprising a group of people, in contrast to “the individual context” comprising an individual.

A conceptual model has been developed by building from a priori knowledge and substantiated through four in-depth interviews conducted with qualified experts in the field.

It is found that the value of visual thinking lies in its process. A conceptual model was built linking visual thinking with its relationship with verbal thinking, and value co-creation. There is a spectrum relationship between visual and verbal thinking in the group context. Visual Thinking does not happen in isolation thus system thinking theory is helpful for complexity modelling. The broader concept of design thinking provides an umbrella such that visual thinking can find a home.

The dynamism between using visual and verbal thinking can open new possibilities, facilitating communication and potential development. Inhibitors and drivers are identified. Drivers for the dynamism will help people jump out of their traditional ways of thinking and generate new benefits such as idea generation and learning. The dynamism between using visual and verbal thinking is limited by inhibitors from two main aspects including the context (e.g. social emphasis on verbal thinking) and personal identity such as individual preference, habit, lack of self-awareness and cognitive overload.

Two thinking roles are identified, communicator role and audience role. A good thinker may not be as a good communicator, and only if team members perform both thinking roles (i.e., communicator role and audience role) simultaneously will the understanding be co-created in the communication.
Team performance is determined by the ability of team members to think together (i.e. collective intelligence), and better understanding how people think will help identify opportunities. Helping team members understand their thinking modes and others is beneficial for facilitating communication and understanding among team members. To facilitate communication, the organization may organize training for team members to improve their communicator and audience skills.

Keywords:

Visual thinking, co-creation, visual literacy, visual language.