“Creativity in Science through Visualization”, 1965-08-01 (; backlinks; similar):
Editors’ note: Mr. Walkup, an electrical engineer by training but an applied physicist by experience, has worked 12 years. in research on explosives and ballistics and 19 years. in the technology of the graphic arts, especially on the electrostatic photographic process called xerography. In this latter field he has been a major contributor of inventive ideas; he holds 37 U. S. and 60 foreign patents. The present article is a result of his personal study of creativity in his co-workers in a large industrial research institute.
The fact that attempts to gain insight into the creative process have been so unsuccessful suggests that they have overlooked at least one basic ingredient in the process. This ingredient may lie in the nature or way the individual mind goes about remembering and manipulating data. The hypothesis is advanced that the creative persons appear to have stumbled onto and then developed to a high degree of perfection the ability to visualize—almost hallucinate—in the area in which they are creative. And their visualizations seem to be of a sort that lend themselves to easy manipulation in the thinking process.
This is illustrated by reports from many of the great inventors of the past and it is easy to demonstrate that individuals differ enormously in the kind and degree of their ability to think in such manipulable visualizations. If correct, this aspect of creativity suggests many research attacks and many potential changes in education for creative activity.
…It is interesting to ask a number of persons to solve a simple problem in mental arithmetic, say, to ‘subtract 46 from 100’, and then to ask them what went on in their heads as they solved the problem. I have found the following gamut of processes used. Some persons simply grope around with words, perhaps dividing the problem up into subtracting 6 from 10 and 4 from 10, which they do simply by remembering the words associated with these operations and then somehow combining these results to give the final answer. Others mentally write out 100 with 46 beneath it and picture the process of writing down the answer below the two. Finally, some individuals have specialized equipment for just this operation. They visualize two juxtaposed scales from zero to 100, one starting at the right and one at the left. With this mnemonic gadget the required subtraction involves simply finding 46 on one of the scales and reading off 54 on the other!
…Another interesting example involves the ability to visualize combinations of cubes. Try asking a number of persons to visualize a large cube made up of 27 smaller cubes, that is, three on each edge of the composite cube. Then, ask him to imagine painting the entire outer surface of the large cube. Finally, ask him how many of the smaller cubes he has painted on zero, one, two, or three sides. After he gives the result, ask him to describe the mental process he used in arriving at the answer. A surprising variety of answers come from this simple test.
Some persons, even some professionally engaged in science and art, simply are unable to solve this problem mentally because they cannot visualize a cube in any way! Others stumble around with crude visualizations of a cube and end up by guessing at the answer. Some can visualize an opaque cube fairly well but must infer from the one view what is on the other side. The most potent approach seems to be that of the person who can visualize a transparent cube and simply count the smaller cubes whose sides are covered with paint, a process something like counting one’s fingers with his hands held up in front of him.
In still another provocative problem, persons may be asked co give verbal directions for driving a car from one location to another, and then asked what they visualized mentally as they were giving the directions. Again, a wide variety of mental processes will be disclosed. Surprisingly, many persons report seeing the route as from a low-flying helicopter.
The fact that different persons use vastly different visualizations in thinking is suggested by some other informal reports. One person has declared that he dreams only in words, that he does not use any form of visualization in dream states. It has been claimed by some semanticists that the human being thinks only in words. This seems an utterly absurd statement to many of us who spend a large part of our waking hours in visualizing and thinking in pictorial representations. This, of course, does not deny the fact that it is quite possible that semanticists do, in fact, think only in words; it would be logical that “word thinkers” would be drawn to this specialized field.
…This is well illustrated by the now famous visualization by Kekule, as reported by Beveridge, which led him to the discovery of the benzene ring through a vision of a series of linked atoms biting its tail like a snake. Michael Faraday was one of the first to “see” the electrical and magnetic lines of force that now are standard tools for physicists to visualize otherwise mysterious phenomena in this area. Albert Einstein apparently believed that thought consisted entirely of dealing with mechanical images and not at all of words. The mathematician Jacques Hadamard reported that he thought exclusively in visual pictures.
However, these men did not seem to realize the uniqueness of their ability to visualize in manipulable images. They seemed to assume that all persons had much the same ability. Inventors with whom I have talked report thinking visually about complex mechanisms and organic chemical molecules combining with other molecules.
So, it appears that ideas which can be grasped when drawn on paper can be visualized without being put onto paper, perhaps with many shorthand approximations for unimportant parts. Also, the nature of the seeing or sensing is peculiar. It is almost a feeling like the object being visualized. One can feel the pressure of contacting objects, or the erosion of material by friction, or the flow of heat from one point to another, or the swing of the oscillating electrical circuit, or the bending of light as it passes from one medium to another, or the appropriateness of a well-designed structure co hold a maximum load, with every part equally strained in the process, or the eternal bouncing about of the molecules of a gas, or the almost physical transfer of energy from the gasoline, through the motor, transmission, and to the driving wheels of the automobile. It is as though one’s own kinesthetic sensing mechanisms were associated with the physical object and that he thus sensed directly what was going on in the external system.
In highly-developed visualizers, this process probably is carried over for other than physical phenomena. Thus, poverty can be seen and felt as a pervading vapor that penetrates a house with its odors and depression, and history might be strung out along an imaginary line extending back as far as one wishes.
…At least here is a positive lead that is so apparent to the creative persons with whom I am familiar that they never stopped to consider whether or not it is special. When asked if they use life-like visualizations when they are inventing, they are inclined to say, “Why yes. Doesn’t everybody?” [cf.: typical mind fallacy]