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NAVIGATION
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What is a viosiogram?
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A viosiogram is a diagram - in onther words, a kind of drawing. A viosiogram is used to describe matters visually. Visiograms are useful because a visual representation is easier to understand than an ordinary description, especially if the description is complicated. Descriptions easily become complicated and diffucult to understand when they contain numerous new facts and refer to the interrelationships among these facts. One can absorb more infromation and one can grasp the information more quickly if one has a visual image of the matter being described.
A visiogram has predefined elements. These elements are the building blocks of visiograms. One needs these elements to build or assemble visiograms. Visiograms also have rules. The rules are used to combine elements correctly. In onter words, when drawing a visiogram uses predefined elements, which one combines according to particular rules. The elements and the rules of a visiogram constitute a moddeling language, and a visiogram presents a model of the event or phenomenon that is described by the modeling language.
Suppose one uses circles to represent things. Then a circle is an element of the visiogram. If in addition one uses labels to indicate the names of things, a label is another element of the visiogram. (See Figure 1)
Figure 1: The circle and the label are elements of the visiogram
However one cannot assemble a visiogram correctly if one does not know how to combine the elements of the visiogram. In other words, one needs to know the rules of the visiogram. Suppose the following rule exist for our visiogram:
Circles are labelled by placing the label on the inside and towards the bottom of the circle. Applying this rule one has to place the name of a circle on the inside of the circle and close the bottom of the circle. (See Figure 2)
Figure 2: The circle is labelled on the inside and towards the bottom of the circle.
We now have a very basic modeling language. The language has an alphabet and a syntax, and it is able to indicate events or phenomena. The language has two letters in tis alphabet, namely a circle and a label. According to the syntax (rules) of this language the label has to be placed inside the circle and toward the bottom of the circle. The language can be used to indicate a person (a circle with the word 'person' inside, placed towards the bottom of the circle), the field of psychology (a circle with the word 'psychology' inside), or an accident (a circle with the word 'accident' inside).
A modeling language can become complex when a large number of elements and rules are used. One may need numerous elements and rules if one has to model very complex situations. However, one does not always need a complex modeling language. A simple language can be very helpful. Many Situations can be medelled using just a few elements and rules. In the following section we define a basic modelling language that is very simple but sufficient to model basic events and phenomena in psychology. |
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Other Modelling languages
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There are many modelling languages, but each fits better to a specific field.
This site specifically focus on visiograms, a new found visual modelling language.
Venn diagrams and expandable tree structures are also uised to present information visually.
See links below for more info on Venn digrams and expandable tree structures.
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CopyrightŠ 2004 V van Deventer
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