People Prefer To Know Or Learn From What They See Instead Of What They Hear.

This article shows me an idea that people prefer to know or learn from what they see instead of what they hear, in some occasions. Looking at a diagram is to me, using our eyes to interpret certain information; while reading sentential representations is to me, kind of like to hear it. Because people can read sentential representations and listen to them. It is hard to speaking out a diagram; people need to see it as visual aid. So maybe we can categorize diagram and sentential representations into ways of understanding or learning by seeing and listening. As we have been told since young that we ought to have more confidence in things that we have seen, not things we have only heard from others. This is told probably to reduce the amount of false rumor which may put us into trouble; or it may also because of we understand visual aid better than sentential representations, because they are easier (like the article says).

Although diagram is so good and so useful to help us understand or learn better, but I still find it doubtful understanding very sophisticated questions using diagram. For example, some entry-level Philosophy courses I took use many diagrams; some of them are solely there to let us learn how to draw and understand all sorts of weird diagrams. But in high-level Philosophy courses, visual aids are rarely used. Same thing for politics: while diagrams or charts give people a clear ideas for things like which side is in favor in an election, high-level politics such as parties’ different ideologies or international politics cannot be easily understand with diagrams. One can represents parties’ ideologies in linked diagrams, but people can gain thorough understandings only through detailed and explicit sentential representations. This is true in business worlds too: while visual aids are often used in presentations, but few people would expect themselves or others to understand the whole presentation solely from diagrams,