Weekend Reading – Syntactic Theory of Visual Communication
Syntactic Theory of Visual Communication – Paul Martin Lester, Ph.D.
Source:http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/viscomtheory.html
Here he describes the key tenets of Syntactic Theory with a lot of interesting information about the evolution of communication via images and words.
The key tenets of the syntactic theory of visual communication are:
- Mediated words and pictures have equal importance in the communication process.
- As symbols with similar historical roots, mediated words and pictures are both symbolic representations.
- Images are remembered by thinking about them in words.
The first and the second tenet I agree with wholeheartedly and I feel the first is particularly important in communication, a combination of both words and pictures
I’m not completely agreeable about the last tenet, especially when it comes to recall. For e.g. lets say you view something which instantly reminds you of something else, at times there is no opportunity for the mind to think in words, you just virtually see the image. Nevertheless it’s a very interesting read.
A certain kind of mind is more suited to words than pictures. For that sort of person (I’m like that), tenet 3 is absolutely true.
I think this is because I was taught words at a very early age. I read full books when most children would look at picture books. Indeed, I was taught that reading prose is better then seeing pictures, because then my own mind would fill in visuals from the words.
So I guess the third tenet might be suitably modified to, Images are remembered by thinking about them in words for some and by thinking about images for others