Visual thinking in discovery and invention: From physics to cognitive social science

Summary form only given. This talk will discuss the role of visual thinking in scientific discovery and technological invention. Visual thinking uses picture-like representations as internal mental models or as external depictions such as diagrams. The first part of the talk will analyze the role of visual thinking in 100 great discoveries and 100 great inventions. The second part will discuss the contribution of visual thinking to developing new theories in the social sciences based on advances in cognitive science. Cognitive-affective mapping is a new technique for visualizing the role of emotion in social cognition. EMPATHICA is a new graphical system for resolving conflicts by increasing empathy using cognitive-affective maps.