I am an independent cognitive scientist (PhD McGill University) dealing with the thinking processes involved in authentic, team-based tasks. I explore how drawings, speech, and gesture are used by filmmakers and designers to find and solve problems..
I am an independent cognitive scientist (PhD McGill University) dealing with the thinking processes involved in authentic, team-based tasks. I explore how drawings, speech, and gesture are used by filmmakers and designers to find and solve problems that deal with change over time. My background in fine arts, and work as a museum curator fed my graduate studies and current research interests in drawing. The center of my research is visual-spatial-temporal reasoning. I examine how this reasoning is embodied and represented in speech and drawing, and look at the cross-cultural issues in thinking and communicating ideas about space and time. Starting from an ethnographic description based on Activity Theory, I examine deeper levels of cognition, and reference sociolinguistic theories about the relationship between language and thought. My contribution is to frame drawing as a language for thinking, sharing, and transforming thought. With multi-cultural/linguistic classrooms encouraging multimedia literacy, industry film production typically requiring sharing ideas in global design teams, understanding the links between drawing, design, and discourse is critical. This research can reveal and develop environments and technologies that support the thinking processes needed to get from concept to product.
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