Analog, Not Digital: Roots of Visual Literacy and Visual Intelligence.

Communication theorists often make a distinction between two different ways in which a sign or a symbol can evoke meaning. In digital representation, the symbol's domain of reference is conceptually carved up into discrete units represented by purely arbitrary symbols. In analogical representation, the symbol retains a continuous correspondence with one or more dimensions of its referent. Recent scholarship has tended to emphasize the digital side, but this paper draws attention to aspects of analogical representation, arguing that the mental process through which viewers derive meaning from pictures is often based on implicit analogical thinking. Analogical thinking seems to play a major role in the evocation of meaning through abstract qualities and the control of the viewer's emotional engagement through point of view. The most obvious locus of analogical significance in film and television may be in editing. Analogical implications are central to a wide array of visual devices, and it is possible that in learning to make sense of visual communication, we also acquire an enhanced facility in analogical thinking. (Contains 38 references.) (SLD)