The effect of a perceptual syntax on the learnability of novel concepts. Irani, P. & Ware, C. In Proceedings. Eighth International Conference on Information Visualisation, 2004. IV 2004., volume 8, pages 308-314, 2004. IEEE.
abstract   bibtex   
Language theorists argue that the reason why spoken language is acquired so rapidly is that we have an innate predisposition for understanding linguistic structures. Theories of perception also hold that there may be deeply seated mechanisms for decomposing visual objects and analyzing them into both component parts and the structural interrelationships of those parts. We propose the theory that diagrams that activate the mechanisms for structural object perception should be similarly easy to learn. This builds on previous work in which we have developed diagramming principles based on the theory of structural object perception. We call these geon diagrams. We have previously shown that such diagrams are easy to remember and to analyze. To evaluate our hypothesis that geon diagrams should also be easy to understand we carried out an empirical study to evaluate the learnability of geon diagram semantics in comparison with the well-established UML convention. The results support our theory of learnability. Both "novices" and "experts" found the geon diagram syntax easier to apply in a diagram-to-textual description matching task than the equivalent UML syntax.
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 title = {The effect of a perceptual syntax on the learnability of novel concepts},
 type = {inProceedings},
 year = {2004},
 identifiers = {[object Object]},
 keywords = {Computer science,Data visualization,Geon theory,LAN interconnection,Natural languages,Object recognition,Pedagogy,Pediatrics,Perception,Programming profession,Semantic learning,Software engineering,Software engineering visualization,Software systems,UML diagrams,Unified modeling language,computer science education,diagram-to-textual description matching task,diagramming principles,diagrams,geon diagrams,geon theory,learnability theory,object recognition,perceptual syntax,program visualisation,semantic learning,software engineering visualization,specification languages,structural interrelationship,structural object perception,visual object decomposition,visual perception},
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 pages = {308-314},
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 abstract = {Language theorists argue that the reason why spoken language is acquired so rapidly is that we have an innate predisposition for understanding linguistic structures. Theories of perception also hold that there may be deeply seated mechanisms for decomposing visual objects and analyzing them into both component parts and the structural interrelationships of those parts. We propose the theory that diagrams that activate the mechanisms for structural object perception should be similarly easy to learn. This builds on previous work in which we have developed diagramming principles based on the theory of structural object perception. We call these geon diagrams. We have previously shown that such diagrams are easy to remember and to analyze. To evaluate our hypothesis that geon diagrams should also be easy to understand we carried out an empirical study to evaluate the learnability of geon diagram semantics in comparison with the well-established UML convention. The results support our theory of learnability. Both "novices" and "experts" found the geon diagram syntax easier to apply in a diagram-to-textual description matching task than the equivalent UML syntax.},
 bibtype = {inProceedings},
 author = {Irani, Pourang and Ware, Colin},
 booktitle = {Proceedings. Eighth International Conference on Information Visualisation, 2004. IV 2004.}
}

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