The rise in computing and multimedia technology has spawned an increasing interest in the role of diagrams and sketches, not only for the purpose of conveying information but also for creative thinking and problem-solving. This book attempts to characterise the nature of "a science of diagrams" in a wide-ranging, multidisciplinary study that contains accounts of the most recent research results in computer science and psychology. Key topics include: cognitive aspects, formal aspects, and applications. It is a well-written and indispensable survey for researchers and students in the fields of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and graphics and visualisation.

Pioneering work shows how using Diagrams facilitates the design of better AI systems The publication of Diagrammatic Reasoning in AI marks an important milestone for anyone seeking to design graphical user interfaces to support decision-making and problem-solving tasks. The author expertly demonstrates how diagrammatic representations can simplify our interaction with increasingly complex information technologies and computer-based information systems. In particular, the book emphasizes how diagrammatic user interfaces can help us better understand and visualize artificial intelligence (AI) systems. It examines how diagrammatic reasoning enhances various AI programming strategies used to emulate human thinking and problem-solving, including: Expert systems Model-based reasoning Inexact reasoning such as certainty factors and Bayesian networks Logic reasoning A key part of the book is its extensive development of applications and graphical illustrations, drawing on such fields as the physical sciences, macroeconomics, finance, business logistics management, and medicine. Despite such tremendous diversity of usage, in terms of applications and diagramming notations, the book classifies and organizes diagrams around six major themes: system topology; sequence and flow; hierarchy and classification; association; cause and effect; and logic reasoning. Readers will benefit from the author's discussion of how diagrams can be more than just a static picture or representation and how diagrams can be a central part of an intelligent user interface, meant to be manipulated and modified, and in some cases, utilized to infer solutions to difficult problems. This book is ideal for many different types of readers: practitioners and researchers in AI and human-computer interaction; business and computing professionals; graphic designers and designers of graphical user interfaces; and just about anyone interested in understanding the power of diagrams. By discovering the many different types of diagrams and their applications in AI, all readers will gain a deeper appreciation of diagrammatic reasoning.

foreword by Herbert Simon Diagrammatic reasoning -- the understanding of concepts and ideas by the use of diagrams and imagery, as opposed to linguistic or algebraic representations -- not only allows us to gain insight into the way we think, but is a potential base for constructing representations of diagrammatic information that can be stored and processed by computers.Diagrammatic Reasoning brings together recent investigations into the cognitive, the logical, and particularly the computational characteristics of diagrammatic representations and the reasoning that can be done with them. Following a foreword by Herbert Simon and an introduction by the editors, twenty-seven chapters provide an overview of the recent history of the subject, survey and extend the underlying theory of diagrammatic representation, and provide numerous examples of diagrammatic reasoning (human and mechanical) that illustrate both its powers and its limitations.Each of the book's four sections (Historical and Philosophical Background, Theoretical Foundations, Cognitive and Computational Models, and Problem Solving with Diagrams) begins with an introduction by an eminent researcher. These introductions provide interesting personal perspectives as well as place the work in the proper context.Distributed for AAAI Press

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams, Diagrams 2020, held in Tallinn, Estonia, in August 2020.* The 20 full papers and 16 short papers presented together with 18 posters were carefully reviewed and selected from 82 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: diagrams in mathematics; diagram design, principles, and classification; reasoning with diagrams; Euler and Venn diagrams; empirical studies and cognition; logic and diagrams; and posters. *The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters ‘Modality and Uncertainty in Data Visualization: A Corpus Approach to the Use of Connecting Lines,’ ‘On Effects of Changing Multi-Attribute Table Design on Decision Making: An Eye Tracking Study,’ ‘Truth Graph: A Novel Method for Minimizing Boolean Algebra Expressions by Using Graphs,’ ‘The DNA Framework of Visualization’ and ‘Visualizing Curricula’ are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams, Diagrams 2021, held virtually in September 2021. The 16 full papers and 25 short papers presented together with 16 posters were carefully reviewed and selected from 94 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: design of concrete diagrams; theory of diagrams; diagrams and mathematics; diagrams and logic; new representation systems; analysis of diagrams; diagrams and computation; cognitive analysis; diagrams as structural tools; formal diagrams; and understanding thought processes. 10 chapters are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Diagrammatic reasoning is crucial for human cognition. It is hard to think of any forms of science or knowledge without the "intermediary world" of diagrams and diagrammatic representation in thought experiments and/or processes, manifested in forms as divers as notes, tables, schemata, graphs, drawings and maps. Despite their phenomenological and structural-functional differences, these forms of representation share a number of important attributes and epistemic functions. Combining aspects of linguistic and pictorial symbolism, diagrams go beyond the traditional distinction between language and image. They do not only represent, yet intervene in what is represented. Their spatiality, materiality and operativity establish a dynamic tool to exteriorize thinking, thus contributing to the idea of the extended mind. They foster imagination and problem solving, facilitate orientation in knowledge spaces and the discovery of unsuspected relationships. How can the diagrammatic nature of cognitive and knowledge practices be theorized historically as well as systematically? This is what this volume explores by investigating the semiotic dimension of diagrams as to knowledge, information and reasoning, e.g., the 'thing-ness' of diagrams in the history of art, the range of diagrammatic reasoning in logic, mathematics, philosophy and the sciences in general, including the knowledge function of maps.

The validity of the transformation rules ensures that the correct application of the rules will not lead to fallacies. The book concludes with a discussion of some fundamental differences between graphical systems and linguistic systems.