About Spatial
Vision + spatial
How did vision evolve?
We suspect, but have yet to research directly, that vision itself might have evolved on a core set of patterns within nature, which possibly means that how the world has grown in macro- and micro-senses, and how we perceive the world, are uniquely intertwined. We believe recognition of naturally-occuring patterns played a role in not just human evolution, but in the development of survival skills throughout the animal kingdom. We are excited about formalizing training in the icons to give future generations the ability to manipulate the images and develop a robust vocabulary about them.
A universal visual language
The goal of a visual language is to enhance the connection between the autonomic part of our brains in the visual cortex and the conscious part of our brains in the prefrontal cortex. As children and adults automatically collect visuospatial patterns, in consciously using a universal visual system and associated verbal language, we can amplify one’s own thinking and create a common language for discussion and communication. That the pattern set is derived from nature’s core patterns leverages our evolutionary survival skills for modern living, crossing spoken language barriers across the globe.
It seeks, in equalizing organic and geometric form, to fill out Galileo’s vision “[The] universe … cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.” Core organic forms are indeed as neat a set as geometry, and should be seen that way from an early age, especially to equalize linear and logarithmic trends.
Our identification of geometric forms, now proven as the “visual language of thought“ we are primed for by Sable-Mayer, elegantly aligns also with natural patterns. The manipulation and creative recombinations and reconfigurations of geometric and organic forms are the basis of imagination, visualization and creativity thanks to spatial reasoning.
Spatial visualization
In his 2009 paper “Spatial Abilities for STEM Domains”, Wai posits that spatial skills are on a par with known skills in verbal and math to make up human intelligence. The outdated factory model of schooling as half verbal and half math needs to make room for spatial forms, and not only geometric forms, but nature’s organic forms of growth. To communicate what one sees and one can imagine in a universal, spoken-language-agnostic, graphical system is the benefit, and will increase spatial literacy.
A language of the eyes seeing how things work
We call the result of this spatial literacy da Vinci vision, and seeing forms like an artist and functions like a scientist are together what enable invention, and by extension bio-inspired design. Recently the VP of digital and interactive experiences at Sesame Workshop likened the patternABC to an augmented reality program that we could teach kids. Seeing the correlation between the natural world and the abstracted icons, would allow kids to move between the two worlds faster and make new connections.
Humans navigate the world through hand gestures, body movement, and pattern recognition. We feel an affinity to environmental scientist Jack Dangermond’s vision of an internal “geospatial nervous system” that all humans could be imbued with. By tapping into these in-born talents, we may be able to solve many scientific, technological, and environmental challenges.
How a visual language works for spatial reasoning
To understand complex forms means parsing and disembedding individual shapes and patterns as parts from the whole object or whole scene. Just imagine a drop of water hitting still water and the many patterns involved. STEM fields like biology and medicine especially need organic form vocabulary as the plants, animals, and humans are not geometrical, nor are stages of life cycles.
In the Classroom
Schools lack spatial reasoning, a problem that must be addressed
Spatial skills that humans of all ages require are urgently needing a jumpstart by more than just na2ure’s patternABC team and spatial researchers, and ESRI’s team and geospatial vision. na2ure is looking for multiple partners to boost awareness of the now amply research-based spatial and initial patternABC research and uses as the best available solution for now. While we need additional research to make evidence based educational models, we need research less and action more to start building awareness of what spatial researchers have known for decades, and now have in hand recently. Below are projects we have done so far with scant funding.
Starting in preschool
For preschoolers, we designed a pilot for UNICEF, to test the pABC curriculum among under-resourced children in Tanzania in 2019. The resulting paper from Borzekowski et al, in 2022 helped bolster our claim of the need for separate spatial curriculum for preschools to Dr. Pia Britto, the then-director of Early Childhood Development at UNICEF. The new Sustainable Development Goals (v 4.6) are due in 2030, and we maintain the need to include this curriculum. It is an arts-based approach popular with children and teachers, that uses lessons in identification, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional representation, four-dimensional embodied movement exercises and beyond the classroom in nature walks in the real world.
In K-12, secondary education, and PhD
For K-12 students, the same modalities can grow in complexity and create a thruline for subjects across the curriculum from STEM, the arts, languages, dance and sports. The Collegiate School in Richmond, VA has been working on that integration since 2021. They are also our school partner on the Tools Competition which we won in 2023 to create a digital app alongside the analog cards in Learning Sciences.
Universities have used the cards in engineering at U Calgary, and biomimicry/sustainability classes at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Alex Wolf is co-chair of the Natural Systems Working Group at INCOSE started by NASA’s George Studor, and is asked to present yearly within the group and at the International Workshop to explain with panelists how spatial learning is down in college students due to lack of classes in K-12, such that less than 10% of STEM-interested college-bound students are equipped for STEM coursework.
AI and Research
In AI and at NASA
For AI, NASA Biocene group at the Glenn Research Center (GRC) incorporated the patternABC as a lens into the Periodic Table of Life (PeTaL) machine vision AI to identify all life on earth. The paper’s PI, Vikram Shyam is now a futurist at NASA Langley and we are in the process of the futurist team examining further visualization modules for NASA.
Recently, the graphic visualization lab at NASA GRC updated their new generative AI, BIDARA to include the patternABC. Shyam led the first two volume textbook on Biomimicry, and na2ure cofounders Vijal Parikh and Alex Wolf wrote the chapter on The Pattern Alphabet for the volume on Design, Material, and Habitats in 2022.
Our Research and Researchers
The patternABC is grant writing with David Uttal, Roberta Golinkoff, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek to several NSF and private foundations. Golinkoff’s post-doctoral student Amanda Delgado ran several studies with pABC, one resulting poster showed 4-5 year olds can see 84% of the pABC patterns, and another poster showed that growth patterns (explosion, spiral, branching) were the highest correlation to traditional spatial assessments in the same 4-5 years olds, much higher than traditional geometric shapes (circle, triangle, square) A pre-press paper from Delgado further shows that the growth row of the pABC in particular was a significant predictor of children’s spatial performance based on the Woodcock-Johnson Spatial Relations III test.
Next Steps
What does this spark for you as a reader at your organization?
We are working as fast as we can with the funding and personnel available to develop the next steps, including the app funded by the Tools Competition, and the curriculum, both of which were featured at The Collegiate School’s Education Collaborative in August 2024.
To move spatial learning ahead, much as Esri is with mapping and ArcGIS modules, we are seeking partners who can help in an assortment of ways. We believe the patternABC growth patterns in particular lend themselves to geographical visualizations, in mind,on paper, and in 3D apps. Dr. Uttal agrees that patterns are ubiquitous, and Dr. Britto says the patternABC is useful for not just teaching, but testing, and agrees spatial skills need their own learning within SDG 4.6.
Two core issues
We believe two core issues need immediate attention — the lack of a public awareness campaign, like Reading is Fundamental, and the creation of new core spatial tests for a variety of age milestones, as Uttal et al. call for in their recent article on the poor and inconsistent quality of spatial measures. We invite feedback on possible solutions and interest you may have to solve this mutual problem.
