So What is the BIG Picture?
The Big Picture concept is based on the well known
premise that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Put differently, the detail of a story, picture, project, assignment or job description
is always best interpreted and understood in the light of the whole. This principle is well
illustrated by the adjacent picture.
In this picture the “detail” is represented by the various black spots and the “whole” by the composite image of a sniffing Dalmation that emerges as one looks at the picture. For this to happen the “detail” must be arranged in a very specific manner. Such an arrangement, of course, is impossible without a prior understanding of the “big picture”. For instance, a person who is given only a box of black jigsaw-cutouts, resembling the black spots in the picture, would not be able to figure out their position and pack them out against a white background to replicate the picture. To construct the picture one first needs to see it. What this means is that most information remains senseless until is viewed in the light of the whole of which it is but a part.
Gestalt Theory
The line of study that is most commonly associated with this principle is the one that has become known as “Gestalt theory” or “Gestalt psychology”, the German school of psychology that traces its origin to the early twentieth century and to the work of the Czech-born psychologist Max Wertheimer. Gestalt is a German word for pattern, form or shape and is employed in the English language to refer to the concept of wholeness, especially in the sense that it is used in the Gestalt motto mentioned above: “The whole is more than the sum of its parts”.
Many of the principles of Gestalt theory have been and are being applied across a broad spectrum of disciplines, such as computer science and interface design. For our purposes it is necessary to take note of its relevance to the field of communication, training and development.
Big Picture Perception
Learning takes place through perception. According to Gestalt theory perception is not a passive apprehension and mental storage of observable details, but an active and dynamic process of seeking some sort of order, pattern or form of which the details would only be a part. As Wertheimer put it in the introductory sentence of one his famous papers: “I stand at the window and see a house, trees, sky. Theoretically I might say there were 327 brightnesses and nuances of colour. Do I have "327"? No. I have sky, house, and trees.”
A “Gestalt” could therefore be thought of as a collection of facts that are related in some or other way (“nuances of colour”), that can be clustered together under an appropriate descriptive heading (“sky”) and that stand in some or other relationship with other clusters of facts (“house, trees”). When viewed together these clusters may combine to form a bigger Gestalt with its own descriptive heading, such as “neigbour’s property”. One can keep on playing this game and come up with block, suburb, city, province and so on.
The point is that we view the world around us in this way and that our sensing faculties are highly trained to do this with the least possible effort. Whenever information is presented to us in such a visual and hierarchical fashion our minds comprehend and store it with the greatest of ease. This is exactly what the Big Picture material aims to do. By presenting information in a colourful hierarchy of visual images it takes much of the strain out of studying, memorising and retrieving information.
In this picture the “detail” is represented by the various black spots and the “whole” by the composite image of a sniffing Dalmation that emerges as one looks at the picture. For this to happen the “detail” must be arranged in a very specific manner. Such an arrangement, of course, is impossible without a prior understanding of the “big picture”. For instance, a person who is given only a box of black jigsaw-cutouts, resembling the black spots in the picture, would not be able to figure out their position and pack them out against a white background to replicate the picture. To construct the picture one first needs to see it. What this means is that most information remains senseless until is viewed in the light of the whole of which it is but a part.
Gestalt Theory
The line of study that is most commonly associated with this principle is the one that has become known as “Gestalt theory” or “Gestalt psychology”, the German school of psychology that traces its origin to the early twentieth century and to the work of the Czech-born psychologist Max Wertheimer. Gestalt is a German word for pattern, form or shape and is employed in the English language to refer to the concept of wholeness, especially in the sense that it is used in the Gestalt motto mentioned above: “The whole is more than the sum of its parts”.
Many of the principles of Gestalt theory have been and are being applied across a broad spectrum of disciplines, such as computer science and interface design. For our purposes it is necessary to take note of its relevance to the field of communication, training and development.
Big Picture Perception
Learning takes place through perception. According to Gestalt theory perception is not a passive apprehension and mental storage of observable details, but an active and dynamic process of seeking some sort of order, pattern or form of which the details would only be a part. As Wertheimer put it in the introductory sentence of one his famous papers: “I stand at the window and see a house, trees, sky. Theoretically I might say there were 327 brightnesses and nuances of colour. Do I have "327"? No. I have sky, house, and trees.”
A “Gestalt” could therefore be thought of as a collection of facts that are related in some or other way (“nuances of colour”), that can be clustered together under an appropriate descriptive heading (“sky”) and that stand in some or other relationship with other clusters of facts (“house, trees”). When viewed together these clusters may combine to form a bigger Gestalt with its own descriptive heading, such as “neigbour’s property”. One can keep on playing this game and come up with block, suburb, city, province and so on.
The point is that we view the world around us in this way and that our sensing faculties are highly trained to do this with the least possible effort. Whenever information is presented to us in such a visual and hierarchical fashion our minds comprehend and store it with the greatest of ease. This is exactly what the Big Picture material aims to do. By presenting information in a colourful hierarchy of visual images it takes much of the strain out of studying, memorising and retrieving information.
