A prospectus for instructional research on visual literacy

Abstract

MODALITIES Among the areas that have been mentioned as contributing to the study of visual literacy are aesthetics, anatomy of the eye, body language, cognitive psychology, communication theory, cultural anthropology, instructional technology, mental imagery, neurophysiology, perceptual development, psycholinguistics, semantics, and visual perception. While an interdisciplinary approach can be beneficial to a scholarly area during its early phases of development, such eclectic periods must evolve into periods with clear conceptual foci if a field is to have an identity of its own. In this prospectus I attempt to define one such focus for the study of visual literacy. My suggestions are directed primarily to those concerned with instructional problems in visual literacy; they are less germane to those concerned with such problems as the impact of mass media on society and the aesthetic function of pictorial media. One of the most apparent implications of the term "visual literacy" is that it has something to do with visible (see-able) stimuli. Therefore, one logical place to begin an analysis is to question the nature of these stimuli. The most widely publicized definition of visual literacy is one that was tentatively offered by Jack Debes at the first convention of what is now the International Visual Literacy Association. Debes (1970)