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

by Temple Grandin

When we fail to encourage and develop the talents and skills of people who think in different ways, we fail to integrate ways of learning and thinking that benefit and enrich society.

Word-based thinking is sequential and linear. People who are primarily verbal thinkers tend to comprehend things in order, which is why they often do well in school, where learning is mostly structured sequentially.

Visual thinkers, on the other hand, see images in their mind’s eye that allow them to make rapid-fire associations.

Generally, visual thinkers like maps, art, and mazes, and often don’t need directions at all. Some visual thinkers can easily locate a place they’ve been to only once, their internal GPS having logged the visual landmarks. Visual thinkers tend to be late talkers who struggle with school and traditional teaching methods. Algebra is often their undoing, because the concepts are too abstract, with little or nothing concrete to visualize.

“Object visualizers” like me see the world in photorealistic images. We are graphic designers, artists, skilled tradespeople, architects, inventors, mechanical engineers, and designers. Many of us are terrible in areas such as algebra, which rely entirely on abstraction and provide nothing to visualize. “Spatial visualizers” see the world in patterns and abstractions. They are the music and math minds—the statisticians, scientists, electrical engineers, and physicists.