An idea of individual visual thinking process

An idea of Individual visual thinking process has been suggested by Rober H. Mckim in the book, Experience in Visual Thinking (1972).

"The overlapping circles can be taken to represent a wide variety of interactions. Where seeing and drawing overlap, seeing facilitates drawing, while drawing invigorates seeing. Where drawing and imagining overlap, drawing stimulates and expresses imagining, while imagining provides impetus and material for drawing. Where imagining and seeing overlap, imagination directs and filters seeing, while seeing, in turn, provides raw material for imagining. The three overlapping circles symbolize the idea that visual thinking is experienced to the fullest when seeing, imagining, and drawing merge into active interplay." (Mckim, R.H. 1972. p.6)

He pictured the activities, whether they are “perceptual, inner, and graphic images”, as three kinds of visual imagery: “Seeing”, “Imaging”, and “Drawing”. The three are interacted in a fluid and dynamic way practiced as an active interplay. People keep cycling through the overlapped visual imagery until the problems are solved. And this is a nature of people when a truck driver is driving through a busy traffic, when a football coach considers a new strategy, when a lady plans what to wear, and when an architect describes a new concept to his client.

"Visual Thinking pervades all human activity, from the abstract and theoretical to the down-to-earth and everyday." (Mckim, R.H. 1972. p.6)

This idea can be compared with the one proposed by Dan Roam in the book, The back of the Napkin.