Visualizing and Verbalizing

•The Imagery-Language Connection for Cognition •Dual Coding Theory (Verbal Language plus Non-Verbal Images)

Mental imagery is sensory information that is available to us for language comprehension and thinking…imagery is the sensory mechanism that enables the creation of an imaged gestalt and stops language from going in one ear and out the other.”-Nancy Bell

Visualizing and Verbalizing

A university graduate described listening to a lecture as words slipping in and out of his mind: “It is like the language was written on a blackboard and someone was going behind and erasing it, and I only got a few parts of what was said.”

Visualizing and Writing

Imagery Language

Oral Comprehension

+ =

Imagery Language

Written Translation

+ =

Concept Imagery

Symptoms of Weak Concept Imagery• Difficulty with critical, logical, abstract

thinking and problem solving• Difficulty with written and oral language

comprehension• Difficulty following directions• Difficulty in expressing language orally• Difficulty expressing language in writing• Difficulty grasping humor

Concept Imagery

Symptoms of Weak Concept Imagery• Difficulty interpreting social situations• Difficulty with cause and effect • Difficulty with attention and focus• Difficulty responding to a

communicating world • Difficulty with mental mapping

recital libertyscare

mbuni

Visualizing and Verbalizing

In Africa, the mbuni lives in the grasslands and primarily eats plant matter and invetebrates.

The mbuni is covered with feathers to keep it warm, he doesn’t have the type of feathers needed to fly.

A common myth about the mbuni is that they hide their heads in the sand when they are scared. This is not true.

Mental Representation to Words

Practice the cycle

• Volunteer • Show an image • Describe the image to me• I will verbalize what I imagine based on your

description of the image

words to describe

• How do we describe? Did the description match what I imagained?

• Essentially when we are translating, we are needing words to describe the mental images in our mind.

• What words can be provide students to help them describe their mental images?

Visualizing and Verbalizing Picture to Picture

Picture to PictureStructure Words

what size color number

shape where movement

mood background perspective when

sound

Practice the cycle

• Partner – one describes and the other receives • Show an image • Describe the image to your partner• Partner verbalized what was seen in the

picture.

Holding the image in your mind 1. Flash the image2. Describe the

image to the partner, using your descriptor words

3. Partner describes what they imagined

4. Then together look at the image

5. Was it what you imagined?

halcyon

TRANSLATION

Writing what you saw1. Flash the image2. Write a description of the the image and

share with your partner, using your descriptor words

3. Partner describes what they imagined from your writing

4. Then together look at the image5. Was it what you imagined?

cinematographer

TRANSLATION