Visual Thinking Research

For this assignment, I asked my mom to help me solve two puzzles. On the first puzzle, we need to figure out “what month is indicated by the strange symbols in the illustration above?” Together, we use pattern-seeking process to solve this puzzle correctly, but both of us use slightly different strategies to find the solution. Since the puzzle is asking for which month is indicated by the strange symbols, my mom listed out all the months of the calendar. By visualizing the first strange symbol, she found out it was the letter “J”. Eliminating all the other months starting without the letter “J”, she put check marks right next to January, June, and July. As McKim stated “Pattern finding is often to perceive a pattern is to solve a problem,” my mom uses pattern finding to see which other three strange symbols have similar features on her list. With this, she realized she can cover-up half of the image and it revealed the month, “JULY.” As she put a star right next to “July” and drew a line on the image, she was absolutely sure she has found the solution to the puzzle. As for me, without listing all the months of the calendar, but using pattern finding approach, I visualize which month would have the four letters that is similar with the four strange symbols. As I have the month “July” on my mind, I drew a line on the image and saw the mirror image of the month, “July.” Using our own visual thinking methods, my mom and I eventually found the solution to the puzzle.   

 

On the second puzzle, we need to find a perfect star hidden in the illustration above. This puzzle was harder than I expected. It took me around 15 minutes to find the star and my mom took around an hour to find it. Using pattern-seeking process, I visualize a perfect star in my mind and trace each angles to see if it a perfect star. Without knowing the size of the star, I often get distracted looking at triangles. As I was trying to find the star, I drew on the image to make sure if I found right one. I continue to visualize a perfect star with perfect angles, until I finally found it on the bottom-right corner. As for my mom, she used a different strategy to find the star. At first she got easily distracted as she uses her imagination and found objects that look like a kite or boomerang. She turned the paper left and right, front and back to see if this method helps her find the star easily. Without making any process, she visualizes the star in her mind and uses her fingers to trace each lines and shapes. As my mom was still very determined to find the star, eventually she found it. She was very happy with her effort.