Visual Thinking is a book I came across in the library.
I was looking for something educational or informative. This book definitely fits the bill. The author is autistic and on the sounds of it, pretty far down the spectrum. He couldn’t speak till age 4 and not fluently till 8. This book is not about him; it is just information told through his perspective as a visual thinker. He says there are a lot of people, especially people on the spectrum, that think differently than the “normal” way. He classifies people’s many ways of thinking into two main categories: verbal and visual thinkers. Visual thinkers see ideas as objects and images rather than inner monologues in their head. He postulates that visual thinkers are better at working with their hands: welders, engineers (mechanical), artists, but can’t really put it into words or math. A lot of these people are inventors and have patents.
The book starts off by explaining how to tell if you are a visual thinker. It talks about tests that have been used in the past to tell how a person thinks. I took the simple 15-question quiz and determined I was not so inclined.
Of course, like most things, visual thinking is not black and white; it is a spectrum. After reading the whole book, I think I am further down that spectrum than I originally thought. It goes into the brain and the different areas and which parts light up on different scans when a visual thinker is thinking or solving a problem. The next section goes into evidence that some of the greatest minds were visual thinkers: Einstein, the Wright Brothers, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Wal-Mart, Musk. He shows how they all had a hard time speaking and making eye contact when they were young. After making his point, he goes into the most interesting part for me. He makes a good argument that some of the best minds that America has are being “screened out,” as he puts it. Most visual thinkers are good at abstract ideas like algebra. They tend to do badly in school, and a lot of them don’t make the cut for college because of the poor grades, especially math.
He explains schools used to have shop classes where the visually inclined really shine. Once they can get their hands on the problem, they can fix it or create great new things. Most of the great inventors mentioned earlier tinkered when they were young. Most of them even got in trouble for taking apart things like TVs and computers. The solution to help America catch up on innovation with the rest of the world is to have more shop-type classes and more apprenticeships. He believes, as do I, the stigma of the skilled trades needs to be lifted to give all these visual thinkers room to grow and invent. Their lack of social skills is also a hindrance to young visual thinkers, a fact they were often taught because of a “connection.” Basically, a job market. This hit me hard because I have always struggled with this. I hope to improve my social skills in prison. This book went into a lot more detail about the problems visual thinkers can solve and the ways they view problems.
It also goes into different types of visual thinkers, what he calls object thinkers vs. spatial thinkers. Spatial thinkers are better at math and seeing patterns. I mostly fall into that spectrum. It was a tough read; you could tell the author was on the autistic spectrum. He repeats the same info a lot and jumps around. The info and theories presented were top-notch. I give it 4 stars. ★★★★
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