Visual language

Its structural units include line, shape, colour, form, motion, texture, pattern, direction, orientation, scale, angle, space and proportion.

In Greek philosophy, the School of Leucippus and Democritus believed that a replica of an object enters the eye and remains in the soul as a memory as a complete image.

Arnheim considers the psychologist, Edward B. Titchener's account to be the breakthrough in understanding something of how the vague incomplete quality of the image is 'impressionistic' and carries meaning as well as form.

Abstract art has shown that the qualities of line and shape, proportion and colour convey meaning directly without the use of words or pictorial representation.

"[8] Richard Gregory suggests that, "Perhaps the ability to respond to absent imaginary situations," as our early ancestors did with paintings on rock, "represents an essential step towards the development of abstract thought.

Perception is not a passive recording of all that is in front of the eyes, but is a continuous judgement of scale and colour relationships,[10] and includes making categories of forms to classify images and shapes in the world.

Children's drawings show a process of increasing perceptual awareness and range of elements to express personal experience and ideas.

[19] The development of the visual aspect of language communication in education has been referred to as graphicacy,[20] as a parallel discipline to literacy and numeracy.

The ability to think and communicate in visual terms is part of, and of equal importance in the learning process, with that of literacy and numeracy.