RECLAIMING VISUALIZATION:WHEN SEEING DOES NOT IMPLY LOOKING1

Janete Bolite Frant, Maria Cecília Barto, Cláudio Dallanese, Antonio Mometti 2

Introduction
Research literature has pointed out and emphasized the importance of visualization in
understanding mathematics. Calculus courses in Brazil and around the world had gone
through reform agendas and mostly of the report results point towards the use of computer
technology as a powerful tool to help students visualize abstract contents.
This report is part of a larger study that investigates meaning productions by mathematics
teachers and professors to calculus contents. In this paper our focus is on the role of
visualization in understanding calculus content and in meaning production for derivative of
a function. We will argue based on a perspective from neuroscience that seeing does not
imply looking, based on excerpts from the analysis of two episodes in a computer lab used
for a calculus classroom. The study took place in Brazil; the subjects were 10 mathematics
teachers who undertook a calculus course in a graduate program on mathematics education.
From a neuroscience perspective Sacks (1995) stated that there is not a necessary
connection between the tactile and the vision world; moreover he pointed out that
according to Berkeley “ a connection between them can only be established by experience”.
These results lead us to investigate this phenomenon in mathematics education and raise the
questions, is mathematical experience crucial to look? Is it necessary to learn to look to
mathematics graphic representation?
A theoretical framework
It is fundamental to state how we use knowledge and meaning production, because those
words have been used within different perspectives.
To know is an action that is performed by an individual.
This is a strong premise with important entailments as the following:
There is no knowledge outside the individual. In other words, everything that is said or
written by others is considered a text. Back to classrooms, whatever the teacher or a peer
says is a text for an individual who is listening to; whatever is written on the blackboard or
in the book is also a text.
A person’s utterance about a given text is considered knowledge if it includes a statement
and its justification. For instance if someone states that the derivative of f(x)=x2 is
f’(x)=2x, does not constitute knowledge, it is necessary to justify it.
Eisenstein, the filmmaker, defined meaning production as “the third term”. He stated that
from the juxtaposition of two elements emerges a third one, new with a proper quality. We
will further this vision in analyzing data.
Meaning production is everything that a person can and says about something (Lins 1997).
Again, it is not what that person could say about it but what actually is said.
1
Trabalho apresentado no ICME 10 Dinamarca 2004
2
UNIBAN janetebf@gmail.com
Knowledge and language are strongly related. Let language includes oral, written and
gesture modes.
Language is funded in experience; its use is context dependent. Different from a dictionary
that defines a word using other words, human beings need to interact within the
environment including other human beings to learn how to deal with words, e.g., heavy,
above, green.
From the embodiment cognition theory we find that a conceptual mapping is a cognitive
mechanism that allows organizing and re-organizing thought, and in most of the times we
are not aware of it. Two mappings deserve attention, conceptual metaphor (Lakoff and
Johnson, 1981) and conceptual blending (Fauconnier and Turner, 2002). Thus language is
an important and privileged source to look at if we are to investigate a person’s conceptual
system.
Following to Eisenstein (1975), for us, blending strange elements engender a semantic
possibility that cannot be found in any of the elements per se. For instance, to explain why
water extinguishes fire one cannot look to hydrogen or oxygen separately.
Bob Davis (1984) noted that if we make relations and connections among old and new
things it is because we have material to do so. What material is needed to promote an
understanding of a situation by visualizing a graphic?
For us (Bolite Frant 2002) computer technology is a prosthesis that allows a person who
acts upon it to produce meaning. Is it possible to see a graphic on the screen and
understand it?
Articulating cognitive neuroscience, embodiment theory and argumentative strategy (Frant
and Rabello 2001) we will analyze a derivative activity.
The activities – In the computer lab

Activity 1 consisted of a computer simulation as shown below.

The students were divided in pairs, each pair worked on a computer. When they hit the play
button and point Q approaches point P, the dark blue secant line approaches the light blue
tangent line. The task consisted of watching the simulation as long as they wanted and
write their comments to be shared with all the pairs.
In order to answer our main question, a second activity consisted of a programming piece.
The students should create a computer animation parallel to the simulation, they had
worked on before, using Graphmatica. It is freeware software that has a very narrow
capacity of animation.
Discussion
Regarding the simulation, there was an agreement that “Q moves to P”.
Using conceptual metaphor lenses here we can say that the metaphor is POINTS
ARE PHYSICAL THINGS.
Source Target
A physical body in the space A point on cartesian plane
A car moving along a trajectory A point that “moves” along a curve that
represents a real function.
A car that travels through a tunnel is the A point that “moves” along a curve is
same when it enters and leaves the tunnel always the same
The trajectory represents the movement The graphic on the screen is the trajectory of
the point
We could continue to increase this list but according to our definition of meaning
production we should look at what is effectively being said by the students. Below is a
summary of their talking.
Students gestures, while talking about the simulation, were very iconic and suggested that
the point (x,y) and the point (a,b) could be the same point on this plane even though x is
different from a and y is different from b. If a figure is the same after translation and points
make this figure there is no need to concern about points position.
When the students started the second task that forces them to talk in a different way about
“Q moves to P”, the argument that a point can change its position and still be the same
point was raised. The students were only concerned with the slope of the secant line and
did not take in account the linear coefficient, in a first moment. Since they did not get a
satisfactory animation they started to discuss why it happen, how to solve it. An ongoing
montage was taking place.
This episode showed that thinking of computer technology as an instrument that helps
visualization therefore helps in understanding is too simplistic. For us, using technology,
as prosthesis, in classroom promotes the construction of new texts that when appropriated
by the students, forces them to produce meaning, in that case to learn how to look.
There is a long path to go but we feel that using theories about argumentation, embodiment
and montage seem to work in helping us to create tasks and to understand mathematical
learning.
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