Toward a Theory of Qualitative Visual Reasoning in Microanatomy

Much can be learned about the use of visual information in cognition through the study of visual symbol systems – systems in which a visual structural domain is used to provide information about a target domain (e.g., telescopes used to learn about astronomy). We discuss a recent study that examined a real world task, microscope slide interpretation, in a complex scientific domain, histology. Histology is the microanatomy of biological tissue and consistently depends on the use of microscopes. This investigation demonstrated that identification of histological structures in a microscope is an extremely challenging task with large individual differences. It is remarkable for the degree to which it forces an integration of visual knowledge, generic (anatomical) knowledge, and reasoning into a single cognitive system. These studies point to a development of qualitative reasoning models of recognition, reasoning, and visual analogy in the use of visual symbol systems.