Comment by Michael Grove on February 12, 2011 at 10:12

In the Mind's Eye, Dyslexic Renaissance

From the Author

Technological changes favor visual thinkers

"It is possible . . . that conditions are reversing themselves in a way that is especially favorable to some who are strong visual thinkers but who may have had serious difficulties in conventional academic settings. . . . Different kinds of problems and different kinds of tools may require different talents and favor different kinds of brains." --Thomas G. West, from the preface to the first edition of In the Mind's Eye, 1991. "Thomas West . . . claims that visualization is not only a legitimate way to solve problems, it is a superior way; the best minds have used it. West urges us to join the dyslexics of the world and use pictures instead of words. 

Thomas G. West

The computer-generated information superhighway could launch a new renaissance of creativity for millions of visual thinkers! Some of the greatest minds in politics, science, literature, and the arts experienced undetected learning disabilities that stopped them from assimilating information the same way as their peers. Some of our most original intellects Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Lewis Carroll, and Winston Churchill relied heavily on visual modes of thought, processing information in terms of images instead of words or numbers.

In the "Mind's Eye" profiles gifted individuals who used non-traditional methods in their work as it explodes many myths about conventional intelligence and charts new vistas for today's computer visualisation technologies. Thomas G. West examines the learning difficulties experienced by these people and others, and how recent neurological research shows an association between visual talents and verbal difficulties. In the "Mind's Eye" probes new data on dyslexics to see how computers enhance the creative potential of visual thinkers, as well as interactive computer applications to all levels of education and work. Updated with a new preface, epilogue, and expanded notes, this volume could be the clarion call for educators and corporations to mine this untapped resource of highly creative talent in our midst.

Comment by Michael Grove on January 16, 2012 at 22:49

" Given that dyslexia is universally referred to as a “learning disability,” the latter experiment is especially remarkable: in some situations, it turns out, those with dyslexia are actually the superior learners."

 

Trees of INFORMATION 

While dyslexics typically struggle

to decode the written word,

they often also excel in such areas of reasoning as

mechanical (required for architects and surgeons),

interconnected (artists and inventors); narrative

(novelists and lawyers), and dynamic

(scientists and business pioneers). 

The Dyslexic Advantage provides the very

first complete portrait of the dyslexic brain.

 

Comment by Michael Grove on February 7, 2012 at 14:32

PERCEPTION IS indeed THE MEDIUM

Bridget Riley is about the changes - progressive, sometimes abrupt, sometimes apparently disastrous - that can take place in a given situation.

The situation is presented in the simplest possible terms

            John Russell - Sunday Times - September 1963

One of the most distinctive characteristics of Bridget Riley's art is that it "insists" with such concentration that it changes sensory response into something else.

The experience which Riley offers is closely related to the expression of emotion or, more exactly, to the creation of visual analogues for sharply particularized states of
mind.

The very intensity of the assault which her painting makes on the eye drives it, as it were, past the point at which it is merely a matter of optical effect.

It becomes acute physical sensation, apprehended kinesthetically as mental tension or mental release, anxiety or exhileration, heightened self-awareness or heightened awareness of unfamiliar or even alien states of being.

                                                    Bridget Riley Catalogue introduction - David Thompson
                                                                                            Venice Biennale, June 1968

Comment by Michael Grove on August 2, 2012 at 7:41

 

JUST BELIEVE IN THE NEED FOR A SHIFT IN BELIEF

In the instant of our first breath, we are infused with the single greatest force in the universe - the power to translate the possibilities of our minds into the reality of our world. To fully awaken our power, however, requires a subtle change in the way we think of ourselves in life, a SHIFT in BELIEF -

The Spontaneous Healing of Belief - Gregg Braden

https://www.facebook.com/GreggBraden

 

 

Comment by Michael Grove on January 7, 2013 at 7:33

Apple puts eye into iDevices

Comment by Michael Grove on March 9, 2013 at 8:40

5.0 out of 5 stars West clarifies strengths of the attention deficit disordered 9 Dec 1998

By an Amazon Customer

Format:Hardcover

West describes the subjects of this book as dyslexic. I have developed a special interest in treating adolescents and adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD) and have never read a clearer or more helpful explanation of how differently the ADD person thinks and processes information from the rest of us (the "Earth People", one of my patients calls the non-ADD persons, since he spent all his undiagnosed life feeling as if he were from another planet). So I chose to read ADD wherever West writes "dyslexia". Be that as it may, and whatever the terminology, it is enormously supportive and helpful to my ADD patients when I explain their observations of their differences in West's terms. There is a poster in my waiting room showing a picture of Einstein, with a reference to how poorly he did in elementary school and the caption: "They said he was a nice enough kid, but no rocket scientist..." West discusses Einstein, and Faraday, and Maxwell, and how they thought differently; what a useful way to understand that not all differences from the norm are inferiorities. For the kid or adult who wonders if she is stupid but is certain she doesn't learn the same way as most of those around her; for the parent who is searching for some way to validate an unhappy child; for the teacher who is struggling to understand the pupil who seems to have brilliant flashes interspersed with an almost stuporous inattention and a talent for intrusion and non sequitors; for the mental health worker who is searching for a model with which to understand these most enigmatic clients; for the skills coach who KNOWS these kids and adults are NOT "lazy, stupid, or crazy", and needs some way of showing this to them... for all these sojourners with the ADD person, this book is enormously helpful and stimulating. I use material from it every day, gratefully.

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