At any given time I have between two and twelve ideas for projects being devised on visual language research. More realistically, I'm usually engaged in a few at a time. Much of my previous research has been in developing theory pertaining to various issues related to visual language. While I am consistently doing theoretical work, recently my focus has shifted to putting these theories to the test. So, I am trying to work on projects involving the collection of data, both from source materials and psychological experimentation.

If you are working on similarly related research, or would like to do work of this nature, I encourage you to contact me.

Visual Language Grammar

My main project in visual langauge research has always been exploring how sequences of images create meaning in the mind, and as a graduate student at Tufts University it is now my primary focus. I am primarily interested in developing a model for how such competance is structured, the nature of its comprehension, and how that system relates to other cognitive domains like verbal discourse and narrative, event structure, and even musical cognition.

For example, does this sequence feel "good" or "bad" to you? ...or both??

Previous research on this topic:

Early Writings on Visual Language (book)

Visual Syntactic Structures (click for pdf)

Sequential Images Reference Bibliography

Visual Language Typology

This project involves coding and analyzing the properties of various "comics" from around the world to distinguish the diverse range of potential structures found in graphic expression. For example, are there universals across cultures' visual languages? Are there significant differences? Are there consistent types of panels used in visual languages? What are the conventional signs and symbols used in differing cultures' comics, and how can they be categorized? Etc...

Previous research on this topic:

Cross Cultural Space (click for pdf)