🚀 go-pugleaf

     Folks,

     Recently a couple of related threads on this bbs have become
apparent to me. One is a general crtitque of our language -- both
syntactic and semantic. The other thread questions whether text
may be a dying communication media -- that there is a "brave new
world" of graphic-pictorial communication ready to displace 
linguistic media.

     For many years I have observed people learning a wide range
of skills and knowledge.  There is little question that instructional
graphics are a powerful way to build "memorable" representations
in a student's mind.  They are both vivid and concrete.

     One problem for instruction in any media is that the world
of work (at least technical work) has become so volitile, that
instructional representations and their mental counterparts have
tto undergo frequent revision.

     My concern is that the wholesale substitution of the graphic
and pictorial for the linguistic could lessen our ability to adapt
to this volitility ---- what psychologists call training transfer.
It is currently fashionable (particularly in the expert system
community) to see all knowledge as particular ---- to see transfer
as really new learning.

     It is at least a reasonable supposition that the heavy
substitution of the graphic/pictorial for the linguistic in
instruction may lead to even more particularism and reduced
transfer.  If, as I suspect, propositional instruction
produces a more generic mental representation, we may be
sacrificing transferable learning for the admitted learning
efficiency of pictorialism.

     Is there any evidence that either supports or refutes
these suppositions?

     It used to be a cliche that language was the supreme
accomplishment in the evolution of our species --- Has the
power of pictorialism made this assertion anachronistic?

Ed


--Ed Aiken      aiken@nprdc.arpa
               ...ucbvax!ucsd!nprdc!aiken