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Principle #1:

All effective visual thinking must obey the laws of the visual system of the brain.

 

Metacontrol:

A sorting system for incoming information before you have a chance to "think" about it.

 

 

Scientific studies show that signals coming into the brain are "automatically" sorted in a level of the brain stem. The information is sent them to the hemisphere that it seems should be "in charge"; the level that can best handle that type of information.* This hemisphere will then dominate the mental processing in its own characteristic manner or mode. Each hemisphere is process specific.

WARNING: This sorting process may not send the material to the hemisphere that is best able to deal with the task. The art teacher must shape instruction to engage the visual thinking processes necessary for artistic achievement.

* Source: Levy, Trevarthen and Sperry. Perception of Bilateral Chimeric Figures Following Hemispheric Disconnection. Brain. Vol 95, 1972.

 

Let's look at ways an art teacher might assign tasks:

Verbal Instructions

Visual Instructions

Betty Edward's Principle

 

Principles

1. Metacontol

Verbal Instructions

Visual Instructions

Betty Edward's Principle

Process Specific Hemispheres

I. Process Specific Functions

II. Process Specific Functions

2. Artists' Methods

Thinking Modes

3. Right Mode Processes

Left Hemispheric Mode Problems

Right Hemispheric Mode Problems

4. Visual Cognition

Basic Knowledge

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