"Diagramming"
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I introduced the term “diagramming” as the condition for the creation and the use of cognitive dynamic tools.
By diagramming, humans establish an external connection—external to their mind and in the more advanced cases external to their bodies— among various cognitive systems—the visuo-spatial system, the motor system and the conceptual system—to enhance their reasoning powers and obtain new conclusions. The space of these objects is used as a benchmark to apply action in order to enhance our reasoning capacities.
What grounds both our semantic and inferential competences with these tools? Do their physical features have to align with our previous and more spontaneous cognitive capacities? What of our cognitive systems that are partly hard-wired into our brain is recruited to use them effectively? How do we go from the observation or the modification of their physical features to new conclusions?
In this framework, I am interested in gesture as the most basic—and still bodily— cognitive tool allowing for diagramming.
Does gesture externalize thought and structure reasoning? If gesture helps communication, and if we consider reasoning as a form of communication with oneself, does it also help reasoning? What about gesture for the self?
Some papers:
Giardino, V. (2023), ¿Somos “seres espaciales”? Razonamiento y espacialidad. In: J. Ferreiro ́s et M. de Paz (eds). La génesis de la geometría, edited by , Madrid: Plaza y Valdés Editores, pp. 51-68.
Giardino, V. (2016), Behind the diagrams: cognitive issues and open problems. In: S. Krämer and Christina Ljungberg (eds). Thinking With Diagrams, The Semiotic Basis of Human Cognition, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 77 – 102.
Giardino, V. (2014), Diagramming: Connecting Cognitive Systems to Improve Reasoning. In: A. Benedek and K. Nyíri (eds) Visual Learning, vol. 4: Emotion, Expression, Explanation, Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang Verlag, pp. 23 – 34.
Jamalian, A. – Giardino, V. – Tversky, B. (2013), Gestures for Thinking. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 645 – 650.
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