SYNESTHESIA/IDEASTESIA LEARNING How Dimensioning Has Long Informed Sense-Making
When examining how sense-blending or synesthesia has been utilized in the past and present to inform information gathering, and deciphering how to effectively utilize digital technology in its systematized recreation, we must consider its consistent core functions. Calendars, maps and musical notation are all prime examples of this process and such archetypes stretch all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia, Babylon and ancient Greece at around 3100 BC, 600 BC, and 1400 BC respectively.
A few important factors are worth noting in these illustrations:
Visualization, Place points and scales Increments and Iconic symbolism and Dimensions. (usually two) Why are all these a structures important to understand? They all reveal chief operations in human cognition. First, visual processing enables people to analyze and compare all the components of data. Such graphic layout enables otherwise abstract concepts to be metaphorically stamped with a concrete image representation. This process is what neurologist Dr. Danko Nikolic refers to ideastesia, the linking ideas to sensory depiction. Calendars, maps and musical notations all deploy a visualized framework.
The second significant component of all these aforementioned synesthete examples is physical placement. A spectrum is devised, where pertinent information is placed on a scale or continuum where the value of component parts is systematically compare. This is why such common use visual figurative language as high and low are employed to define such divergent concepts as directions (north and south), heat measure (hot and cold), and price (cheap and expensive) just to name a few. By comparing many quantifiable properties with up to down connections, the mind is able to convey and perceive comparisons of properties in a compensable and orderly manner.
A calendar displays days, weeks and months visually, numbering the days and naming the weeks and months. A map takes a large three-dimensional space and scales it down and size and collapses to two dimensions. Musical notion translates measures of sound to visualized forms, hence it can be considered the purest form of synesthesia.
Increments are important because by breaking down what can be endless prints into repeatable patterns of fragments enables the mind to attain a sense of proportion, making sense of the contextual measure of each point.
In the case of calendars, this takes the form of days, weeks, months and years. In maps, kilometers, miles are others measure of distance. In musical notation, notes and octaves are utilized.
Iconic symbolism is significant because connects information regarding what elements are on the plot points. With this, you can assign color, shapes and others keys to link data that is measured from its form and context.
In calendars, this is representing my boxes, lines and rows, they resemble the numbed days, weeks, months, etc. For maps, colors and designs are utilized to resemble buildings, parks, water, and direction. In the case of music, the G-clef, notes with tails, bars and accent lines all resemble different aspects of the type of noise, pitch, length and pattern the melody resides.
When placing two or more dimensions of data together, a window is preverbally opened allowing the conveyor of information to present different components. One dimension enables the instructor to assign one element of data on a continuum to compare one end to the other, i.e., higher/lower, greater/lesser, etc. When one adds an additional dimension, suddenly you are able to evaluate multiple aspects of data concurrently. That way, you can show interrelated but distinctive positioning, conveying interrelation.
For calendars, days are displayed on the X-axis, they move from left to right, demonstrating the linear element of time, how it always moves forward. With maps weeks (on a monthly calendar) on the other hand are presented on the Y-axis, that is, each new week is displayed under the last, until you reach the end of the month, and the page turns and starts over. Hence, the cyclical element of time is conveyed, each week repeats the same days, each years the same months, etc. In the instance of maps, up and down customarily represent north and south, left and right east and west. With musical notation, pitch is presented as up and down or the Y-axis. As often is the case, the X-axis is reserved for time. This phenomenon is similar to how in business and science, time is almost always the independent variable listed on the X-axis, leaving the Y-axis for elements like temperature, stock price, tests scores, etc.
With all this in mind, how does one apply such concepts to teaching core academic subjects such as mathematics or language? Consider how the number line has long been utilized to measure the simple up and down (addition and subtraction) aspects of math. Therefore, what happens when you add a second continua, an adjacent number line is crafted? Having established the qualities on the X-axis, the Y-axis adds the number groupings and vola, you have multiplication. Likewise, from there you can slice along the X-axis and you can demonstrate how division functions. Hence, the utilization of the Cartesian Plane can visually convey the interrelations and functions of all four mathematical functions, i.e., addition and subtraction of opposites, as are multiplication and division. Multiplication is the compound of addition.
By deciphering the relations of the basic mathematical functions to each other, a student is able to grasp a conceptual understanding of math, that is the function of values on a more abstract level, as opposed to merely the more traditional computational understanding that focuses more on rote memory of quantities and procedures. This conceptual mathematical understanding provides a more flexible framework for leveling up to more abstract mathematical practices and algebra and from there, trigonometry, geometry, calculus and statistics.
In the case of language, you can parcel out the elements of linguistic communication being phonics and semantics. Phonics connects letters and groups of letters with sounds that construct each work. From classic poetry to song-lyric writing to rap, rhythm, rhyme and iteration design echoing structures of words and sentences in a manner that is memorable and audio-aesthetically pleasing.
Semantics reflects the other end of the communications coin. For meaning is vital to language, and meaning can come in multiple forms, fact/feeling, explicit/implicit, literal/figurative, and stand-alone/contextual. Utilizing tables with multiple axes can catalog the functioning constructs of oral and written communications in a systematized sense-blended manner.