What does this research mean for the field?

Mental visualization is a distributed social practice that can be effectively assessed through a triadic model of visualization literacy. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.NOVEL_FINDING. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

The study aims to reconceptualize drawing from imagination as a social practice and develop a model for visualization literacy instruction.

March 13, 2026Open Access

Mental Visualization As Social Practice: Repertoires, Material Mediation, And Micro-Temporality

Key Points

The study aims to reconceptualize drawing from imagination as a social practice and develop a model for visualization literacy instruction.
Conducted a mixed-methods pilot study with 30 Czech secondary-school graphic design students.
Utilized observations, questionnaires, and artifact analyses across three task regimes.
Analyzed the data to identify patterns in students' visualization practices.
Identified five distinct repertoires used by students in visualization tasks.
Found three recurring thresholds representing challenges in translating mental models to drawings.
Proposed a triadic model for assessing visualization literacy activities.

Abstract

Abstract This article reconceptualizes drawing from imagination as a distributed social practice and develops an empirically grounded triadic model that informs the design and assessment of visualization-literacy instruction. A mixed-methods pilot study with 30 Czech secondary-school graphic design students (March–June 2025) combines observation, questionnaires, and artifact analysis across three task regimes and age cohorts. The analysis identifies five repertoires and three recurring thresholds, interpreting difficulties as translation bottlenecks between modalities and between mental models and marks on paper. Visualization literacy is framed as a transferable material-discursive competence, and a triadic model is proposed as a portable script for assessing visualization-literacy activities.

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