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Theory Into Practice

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Visual Intelligence: Using the Deep Patterns of Visual Language to Build

Cognitive Skills
David Sibbet

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To cite this Article Sibbet, David(2008)'Visual Intelligence: Using the Deep Patterns of Visual Language to Build Cognitive

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Theory Into Practice, 47:118127, 2008

Copyright The College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University
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David Sibbet

Visual Intelligence: Using the Deep

Patterns of Visual Language to
Build Cognitive Skills

Thirty years of work as a graphic facilitator

listening visually to people in every kind of
organization has convinced the author that visual
intelligence is a key to navigating an information
economy rich with multimedia. He also believes
that theory and disciplines developed by practitioners in this new field hold special promise
for educators and students learning the deeper
grammar of visual language. This article shares
conclusions drawn from the authors own extensive field experience, with links to work in process
theory and cognitive science that have convinced
him of the deeper potential of visualization as a
path to building 21st-century cognitive skills.

David Sibbet is the Founder and President of The

Grove Consultants International, a full service organization development firm specializing in visualizing
change.
Correspondence should be addressed to David
Sibbet, The Grove Consultants International, 1000
OReilly Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94129. E-mail:
david_sibbet@grove.com

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What Is Graphic Facilitation?

O BEGIN , LET ME SHARE a story that

illustrates how graphic facilitation works.
Recently, a rapidly growing human resource development consulting firm operating in China and
Japan asked my company, The Grove Consultants
International, to come to China and teach their
consultants graphic facilitation. In spite of a
tradition of using wall posters for communication
and having a language based on ideographic
characters, they had not made the leap to using
graphics as people use spoken languagein an
interactive way.
To orient everyone, I drew the following chart
(Figure 1), telling a graphic story about how a
facilitator manages the four flows of activity in
any group process. The top level illustrates the
attention and intentions of the group. Next is the
physical energy and movement created by the
activities and interaction of the group. The third
level shows the flow of information, referring
to all the things said by the participants in the

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Visual Intelligence: Visual Language and Cognitive Skills

Figure 1.

Graphic recording of an interactive presentation.

meeting as recorded on charts and boards or

presented in tables and graphs. The final level,
bottom line, represents the flow of operations,
meaning the physical and organizational mechanisms that provide the means of expression for
the group.
This chart was in full color, and was 4 by
8 feet in size. The words in the four different levels were drawn from the group in an interactive
dialogue. The process manifested some results
that are typical for groups being facilitated with
interactive graphic visualization of this sort:
1. People became more highly engaged: The
interaction and unfolding drawing was fascinating. Seeing spoken words reflected accurately encouraged better communication. Seeing comments recorded incorrectly stimulated
corrections, another form of participation.
2. The group moved to big-picture thinking:
Working on large displays allowed everyone
to see a large number of elements juxtaposed
in ways that supported thinking about relationships and systemic patterns.
3. Everyone could remember the conversation:
This recording was kept up during the workshop and created a publicly-validated group
memory that kept people oriented during the

meeting, and supported follow-through after

the meeting.
My field experience shows that even beginning practitioners of interactive graphics achieve
these same results. So what does this teach us
about cognition?
Experience Is the Basis of
Meaning Making
There is a growing understanding in neuroscience and cognitive theory that direct experience is the basis of how humans create meaning,
and that early experiences become foundation
metaphors for interpreting later experiences and
language itself. Lakoff (1987, 2004) has written
extensively about this.
Bachelard, a philosopher of science at the
Sorbonne in Paris from 1940 to 1954, believed
the same thing. He switched to aesthetics in
later life and wrote The Poetics of Space (1994),
a marvelous exploration of how we experience our surroundings, specifically architectural
spaces. We know about submersion, he contends,
from our first time being underwater. We understand vista from our first time looking out
over a landscape from a high place. Around

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Digital Literacies in the Age of Sight and Sound

that grain of experience, we create the pearl of

meaning.
If this is true, the key to understanding visual
literacy is to first understand the universal human
experiences that inform visual thinking. This is
a very different approach from one based on just
studying patterns of representation.

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Thinking About Process Instead

of Structure
For several years after discovering graphic
facilitation in the early 1970s, I collected every
form of visual representation that I felt might be
useful for organizations and groups. I soon had
files full of grids, diagrams, conceptual models,
tree structures, and cartoon drawings. But my
real understanding of visual intelligence came in
1976, when my perspective changed in a way
that revolutionized my companys approach to
teaching visual literacy to facilitators. I came
to understand that the visual patterns of graphic
displays are the artifact of something alive and
dynamicthe process of creating the visual. And
the process of creating the visual is mirrored in
the process of a viewer making sense out of it
afterwards.
The catalyst for this way of thinking was
Arthur M. Young, a cosmologist who had worked
for 30 years to bridge and integrate the conventions of thinking and representation used
by scientists and those used by metaphysicians,
believing that science had rediscovered the role
of the human observer in shaping experience
and even scientific experiments. Developments in
quantum physics, in his opinion, showed clearly
that the fundamental aspects of our existence
are processes and energies that are constantly
changing, and that looking at the world in this
way solved many puzzles of how science and
metaphysics work together in one system.
Young wrote about his theory of process in
a seminal book, The Reflexive Universe (1976).
I was fortunate to be part of his study group in
that same year. The members of the group were
challenged to test his theories by applying them
to our areas of expertise, which in my case was
using graphics to facilitate group communication.

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The shift to looking at graphics as a process

was profound for me. I realized that both the
input process of perceiving visual information
and the output process of creating visual displays
fell into universal patterns, and that by looking
at graphic displays as artifacts of a process, and
holding the process as more fundamental than the
form, I could begin to make sense of the hundreds
of resulting formats and designs that I had been
collecting. The Group Graphics Keyboard was
a direct result of my new way of thinking.
Group Graphics Keyboard
The following illustration (Figure 2) is the
result of this work. It is a poster used by graphic
facilitators to decide what visual pattern to use at
different stages of a group process. The metaphor
is playful, intended to support remembering the
elements. The platforms or keys are little, abstract
meeting rooms, with a display on one end.
Each pattern is a completely different way of
organizing or processing information on a visual
display. They are ordered from simplest on the
left to the most complex on the right. As in
much of nature, the simpler patterns can nest
inside the more complex ones. Bear in mind
that this graphic, like all the others that illustrate
it, represents patterns that look static, but in
practice are processes of display-making that are
very active. The process itself is indicated by
the words in the circle above the display. The
purpose this process tends to serve is shown in
the top line of lightsrepresenting generic kinds
of intentions or purposes a facilitator might serve.
As we shall see, they also represent different
kinds of cognitive capabilities.
Reviewing these patterns one at a time will
illuminate how this metaphoric keyboard can be
used to exercise visual perception over the full
range of visual intelligence available to humans.
1. Posters: The simplest visual process is to
detect differences or to differentiate: seeing
something that stands out from its context,
such as a single, focal image on a white
page. Our cortex is highly tuned to make these
basic visual distinctions. Even though posters

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Visual Intelligence: Visual Language and Cognitive Skills

Figure 2. The Group Graphics Keyboard.

often have lots of additional information, the

design challenge is always to attract attention
with some focal device that differentiates. The
process of perception is as simple as having
something catching your eye. Bullet points on
a page create little poster effects. Flip through
this journal and notice how the articles with
drawings will catch your eye.
2. Lists: The next simplest visual process is to
flow our attention along a path or a line.
When viewing any kind of chart or visual,
our eyes are in constant motion (the darting
movements called saccades) in the attempt to
find familiar patterns. Hawkins and Blakeslee
(2004) explain this phenomenon clearly. A
linear arrangement is one of the simplest patterns we learn to detect, and one of the easiest
to create when recording. The linear nature of
lists supports scanning, and is probably why
most menus and tables of contents employ this
pattern. The table of contents in this journal
is a good example, as is the list of levels in
Figure 1 in this article.
3. Clusters: The next most complex visual process is imagining relationships between in-

formation clustered together in spatial arrays.

Clusters that do not have connectors trigger
the viewer to imagine and compare linkages.
The chart below (Figure 3) grew out of the
early phase of a meeting where people were
volunteering ideas about the issues facing
their organization. This kind of chart activates
the comparative, analytical mind, but doesnt
limit thinking by establishing conclusions.
Therefore, its the perfect process for brainstorming.
4. Grids: The next most complex process for
visualizing is to combine categories in a
formal way by comparing them on a grid.
This pattern underlies spreadsheets, budgets,
maps, and data charts. Grids are more constrained ways of organizing information but
they are extremely effective for making sense
of data. Grids organize information into rows
and columns defined by categories that can
be formally compared. The Group Graphics
Keyboard has a grid pattern underlying its
structure.
5. Diagrams: Diagrams that branch information
into treelike arrays are the next most complex

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Digital Literacies in the Age of Sight and Sound

Figure 3.

A cluster display.

process to both create and perceive. Unlike

grids, they can grow and expand organically.
Buzan (2003), an English consultant who
has institutionalized mind mapping as a visualization strategy, believes that the higher
patterning of the human brain follows this
pattern. Mind maps start with a central ideal
and branch related ideas out from the center in increasing detail. Organization charts,
flow charts, schedules, and any representation
that shows process over time uses this same
pattern. A formal process for analysis called
causal loop diagramming is a key tool for
understanding the dynamics of living systems.
Senge (1994) elaborates on this kind of visual
process as foundational to systems thinking.
An example from my own practice is shown in
Figure 4. Figure 4 was developed to show the
causal loops that shape the electrical energy
industry in the upper Midwest. Some of the
relationships make other things grow larger
(the plus marks). Others make things become
smaller (the minus marks).
6. Drawings: My own breakthrough in understanding the graphics keyboard was finding
this sixth key. I realized that humans animate
static graphics by projecting visual images

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stored in memory from prior experiences.

A drawing of a large ear and a long trunk
causes us to imagine an elephant. Drawings
in this sense are really graphic metaphors.
The one shown in Figure 5 uses the visual
metaphor of a room to suggest a seminar
on how the Group Graphics Keyboard works.
Any of the prior formats can be enlivened and
animated by applying graphic metaphors. In
the 1980s, page design and multimedia animation programs facilitated the creation of still
images that show development over a series
of changing frames. Today full animation is
possible through many programs.
7. Mandalas: The most complex visual process
is to see how parts unify into a whole.
A mandala pattern organizes all information
around a central point, and supports seeing
things holistically. Mandala is Sanskrit for
archetype and is used to describe the kind
of circular graphics used in Tibetan tankas,
circular sand paintings, the Mayan sun calendar, Native American medicine wheels, and
many conceptual models used to represent
thinking processes. Radar diagrams and pie
charts are modern examples for visualizing
data. Figure 6 is a vision mandala from the

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Visual Intelligence: Visual Language and Cognitive Skills

Figure 4. Electrical energy systems map.

Figure 5.

Drawing of a seminar on Group Graphics.

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Digital Literacies in the Age of Sight and Sound

Figure 6. Visioning mandala.

annual retreat of a graduate school governing

board. You are not meant to read the text, but
to imagine the visualizing process that works
in this pattern. The Board emerged from the
meeting feeling quite aligned.
Powers of the Patterns
In practice, the patterns of the keyboard do
not exist in isolation from each other. Like notes
in music, they combine. In fact, the simple ones
often nest inside the more complex ones. For
instance, single images can be used while listing.
Listing can nest inside clusters. Clusters can be
perceived in grid information.
This kind of building block phenomenon mirrors a capability built into the human cortex.
A fascinating overview of current neuroscience
is Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslees recent
book, On Intelligence (2004). Hawkins is the
designer of the Palm Pilot, but he is also a
longtime student of neuroscience who is now
involved in the effort to create computers that
operate like the human brain; Blakeslee is a New
York Times science writer. This book outlines
Hawkinss discoveries about the structure of the
cortex.

124

Hawkins finds overwhelming evidence that the

six layers of the cortex are a nested series of
pattern recognition and inference systems, working from simple detection of sense data to more
complex organization of categories and beliefs.
These layers are mental models (or patterns),
formed through direct experience. They allow
us to make inferences about incoming sense
data and generate appropriate action in response.
Intelligence, by his definition, is the ability to
remember these patterns and make correct inferences.
It stands to reason that the more complete a
persons pattern recognition capabilities are, the
more flexibility he or she will have in his or her
thinking.
Types of Visual Intelligence
If we look at the visual patterns of the
graphic keyboard as representations of the kind
of thought patterns that allow us to make sense
of our worlds, the following types of pattern perception, or intelligence if you accept Hawkins
definition, can be discerned. These are represented as the purposes of the graphic on the
keyboard.

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1. Focusing: Directing ones attention and distinguishing specific elements in an environment.

Its the process underlying posters.
2. Flowing: Learning to move ones attention in
linear paths. Whole parts of the human brain
work on logic chains, including the sense
of narrative flow in spoken or written storytelling. Taking linear notes in a listing format
supports learning how to flow attention.
3. Comparing: When information is clustered so
that the viewer can puzzle over the many possible connections between the parts, a world
of spatial reasoning opens up. Graphic displays can contain hundreds of specific pieces
of information allowing for panoramic sweeps
over collections of data. Displays that do not
contain explicit connections invite viewers to
make their own, and provide a kind of cognitive gymnasium for creating new connections.
4. Combining: Information that can be categorized in a grid allows for building and creating
new combinations, not unlike the creative possibilities of Lego blocks. When spreadsheets
became available on personal computers, a
new category of what-if thinking opened up
for designers, financial people, and managers.
Such formal organization of information is
especially powerful when related to phenomena that can be objectively defined. Schrage
(2000) argues that this kind of prototyping
activity is at the root of our ability to innovate
and invent.
5. Growing understanding of systems: Diagramming is a completely different kind of mental
process from those discussed above. It involves understanding the core elements of a
system and how the branching components are
connected. This way of thinking emphasizes
connective relationships, temporal sequences,
and causal loops. Diagramming exercises our
insight into the interconnectedness of things.
It is the kind of graphic one would make to
illustrate links in the Internet space.
6. Animating meaning: At higher levels of understanding, humans approach new subject
matter through the lens of past experience.
Finding meaning is finding a personal relationship to information. Making this relation-

Visual Intelligence: Visual Language and Cognitive Skills

ship explicit in graphic metaphors sharpens

our sense of how much we project our personal viewpoint on the world. At a workshop
for grocery executives envisioning the future
of their company, I asked them to visually
answer the question Our stores are like: : :
by drawing charts of their answers. The drawings were simple, but the thinking was not. As
they began comparing their organization to a
town market, an adventure park, a tree, and a
school, their engagement with their company
vision deepened.
7. Seeing unity: Our sense of wholeness and
interconnectedness is deeply rooted in our
visual sense, as the first pictures of the whole
Earth demonstrated. After a Group Graphics
workshop at Hewlett Packard in the early
1990s, their chief technologist showed me
a picture he had drawn of the entire set of
products they made in the computer division,
illustrated on a mandala. I got the idea from
seeing your keyboard. You said the mandala
was the format for seeing things whole, and
it works!

Visual Patterns in Other Media

I have been reinforced in my shift to seeing
graphics as patterns of process and perception
by finding the archetypal nature of these levels
of perception reflected in the evolution of computer software. Consider this progression, which
follows the same pattern of simple to complex
reflected in the keyboard:
1. Paint programs allow the user to make single
images that catch attention.
2. Word programs enable linear representation
and flow.
3. Draw programs support clustering and spatial
reasoning.
4. Spreadsheets support arraying and recombining information on grids.
5. Project management programs, outliners, and
mind-mapping software support diagramming
and usually allow for reports in all four prior
patterns.

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Digital Literacies in the Age of Sight and Sound

6. Multimedia authoring programs, presentation

software, and immersive 3D environments
support all the prior formats, adding animation.
7. Dashboards and radar diagram interfaces support seeing the overall picture in a unified way.

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The Potential for Teaching Visual

Intelligence in the Educational System
After years of experiencing the power of
using visual language across the full spectrum of
patterns, I dreamed that educational institutions
would begin to teach visual language to all students, going beyond teaching it as art to teaching
it as patterns of thinking and perception.
I was encouraged that this was possible when
I came across the book, Drawing With Children
(1986), written by Mona Brookes, a teacher in
Los Angeles. She had her students look for
families of shapes that were nearly identical to
the seven visual patterns in the first list discussed
above. She had her students identify point, line,
angle, box, cloud, and circle families. She asked
them to draw pictures of one kind of pattern, then
to start combining them. In a very short period of
time the students were drawing extremely accurate drawings of their classrooms, other students,
and other things in the environment. Looking for
the visual families sharpened their visual acuity
and gave them a clearer way of seeing the world
around them.
I could see right away how this same approach
could apply to perceiving in the more comprehensive patterns of the keyboard.
Pursuing that dream, Suzanne Bailey, a gifted
teacher who helped create the first Tech Centers
in the California education system in the 1980s,
worked with me to create a continuum that
provides a framework for organizing the many
skill-building practices that have emerged from
our years of visualization work with adults. It
follows the same process pattern of Arthur M.
Young that gave rise to the keyboard, with the
initial skills becoming foundations for the latter
ones. Because the theory of process describes
a developmental progression reflected in many

126

phenomena, dont be surprised if many of these

practices are already very familiar.

The Group Graphics Skills Continuum

1. Stimulating imagination: The process of visualizing begins with imagining. Activities that
support this include:
 Recording dreams.
 Playing with guided-imagery sessions.
 Looking at clouds and seeing pictures.
 Making scribble drawings and looking for
accidental faces and patterns.
2. Allowing free expression: Visual language
can be cultivated by freely expressing oneself through drawing and writing. Practices
include:
 Keeping an illustrated journal. (Most
graphic facilitators keep sketchbooks using
word patterns as well as pictures and drawings.)
 Drawing with eyes closed.
 Using different media.
 Drawing pictures using families of visual
forms, as Mona Brooks teaches.
 Creating videos and making the props.
 Creating collages with images from magazines.
3. Creating presentation charts: Blackboards,
whiteboards, and flip charts allow teachers to
explore different graphic ways of presenting
information. Doing charts in advance provides time to learn lettering, simple images,
coloring, and other techniques. Some of the
practices associated with creating presentation
graphics include:
 Developing an inventory of pictographs to
use in graphic presentations, such as little people, different kinds of tools, books,
computers, and so on.
 Experimenting with maps, charts, and other
formats on the keyboard.
 Practicing different kinds of lettering, like
all caps, italics, and special titling lettering.
4. Graphic recording: With a basic repertoire of
patterns, lettering, and images, one can begin
using graphic language to record discussion

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in real time that someone else is leading.

Practices include:
 Recording what students say in response to
key questions
 Recording in the different formats of the
graphic keyboard: Make lists. Record information on sticky notes and cluster
them in groups. Record information on
a grid. Create a mind map by diagramming the discussion as it proceeds. Use
graphic metaphorsa room, a train, and a
mountainto describe a field of study.
 Practicing selectively recording only one
kind of information, such as suggestions
for action, or facts about the subject being
discussed, or using metaphoric images that
capture the essence of a persons story.
5. Graphic facilitation: Eventually, it is possible
both to lead a discussion and simultaneously
to use graphic visualization as an active display that guides the group in creative thinking.
It involves both leading and recording alternatively. Practices include:
 Creating graphic histories of processes that
everyone knows about, such as how to plan
a trip, using a timeline format.
 Guiding students with big graphic worksheets that are filled out interactively.
For a thorough exploration of the many principles and techniques possible in graphic facilitation, see Sibbet (2006).
Visual language has deep archetypal patterns
that, when seen as processes of perception, can
be taught and practiced. The keyboard provides
a conceptual framework for remembering the
visual patterns that work at different levels of
perception. Using the full spectrum of patterns
exercises visual intelligence and builds under-

Visual Intelligence: Visual Language and Cognitive Skills

standing of the different ways to process information. These archetypal visual patterns turn out
to be fundamental to all kinds of visual media,
especially computer software, and are, I believe,
providing a beginning grammar for teaching the
cognitive skills underlying the kind of visual
literacy students need in the 21st century and its
media-rich global civilization.

References
Bachelard, G. (1994). The poetics of space: The classic
look at how we experience intimate spaces. Boston,
MA: Beacon Press. (Original work published 1953)
Brookes, M. (1986). Drawing with children. Berkeley,
CA: J. P. Tracher/Putnam Books.
Buzan, T. (2003). The mind map book: Radiant
Thinkingmajor evolution in human thought. Harlow, UK: BBC Active.
Hawkins, J., & Blakeslee, S. (2004). On intelligence:
How a new understanding of the brain will lead
to the creation of truly intelligent machines. New
York: Henry Holt and Company.
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things:
What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G. (2004). Dont think of an elephant: Know
your values and frame the debate. White River
Junction, VT: Chelsea Green.
Schrage, M. (2000). Serious play: How the worlds
best companies simulate to innovate. Boston,: Harvard Business School Press.
Senge, P. (1994). The fifth discipline fieldbook: Strategies and tools for building a learning organization.
New York: Doubleday.
Sibbet, D. (2006). Graphic facilitation: Transforming
group process with the power of visual listening.
San Francisco: Grove Consultants International.
Young, A. M. (1976). The reflexive universe: Evolution
of consciousness. New York: Delacourt.

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