Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions

by Temple Grandin

You may have noticed that IKEA instructions come as a series of illustrations—no written instructions at all. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the man who created the company was dyslexic,

Did not know

Halsey explained that “engineers tend to overthink” and do poorly when an innovative solution needs to be determined quickly. “They don’t like to operate outside their comfort zones. . . . They’re very good at their particular specialties but not so good at executions—at translating ideas into things.”

But COVID didn’t create the crisis: a 2008 report from the Association of Schools of Public Health had already forecast a workforce crisis that would result in a shortfall of 250,000 public health workers by 2020. Here

But the music I’ve loved since I was a child comes from musicals. I loved them then and I love them now. In high school, my roommate played Carousel and Bye Bye Birdie and Oklahoma! over and over.

Me too

And when I graduated, I recited the words to “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel: When you walk through a storm hold your head up high It was a song that made me think about my future. There may be storms, but when you get through them there will be a bright future. I have gone through many doors, and in walking through them I always come back to this song and the promise of a golden sky. Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein were the musical team behind many of my favorite musicals, including Carousel and Oklahoma! Looking into their collaboration, I realized they were the perfect example of complementary minds. When

Their very first musical was Oklahoma! Rodgers claims that within ten minutes of Hammerstein’s giving him the lyrics to the opening song, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” its unforgettable melody came to him. “When Oscar handed me the lyric and I read it for the first time, I was a little sick with joy because it was so lovely and right.”

world. In school, he also spoke out of turn. (This is something that I did and sometimes still do. Cutting people off can be interpreted as rudeness or being badly behaved. But for people on the spectrum, it can be a function of our wiring and difficulty with social cues.) Nasar

I do this

As an adult and professor, Einstein refused to wear suits and ties and preferred soft comfortable clothes. It’s

Same

Einstein started taking violin lessons at age six and later said, “Life without playing music is inconceivable to me.”

Later in life, when he was trying to solve a problem, he would play his violin until the solution came into his mind.

Perhaps math departments should encourage students to learn a musical instrument. Researchers

Good Idea

Shigeru Watanabe from Keio University in Japan found that pigeons could learn to tell a Monet painting from a Picasso, even when shown a painting they had not previously viewed.

For certain dogs, verbal praise from their owners was preferred over a treat. Berns concludes that the more we learn about a dog’s brain, the more we must admit “we had much in common with dogs at the deepest levels.”

Coincidentally, the Fern Hollow Bridge plunged into the ravine below on the same day that President Biden was scheduled to visit Pittsburgh to talk about infrastructure, emphasizing the need to improve the supply chain, revitalize manufacturing, and create good-paying jobs. These

Wow