RESEARCH REPORT · 17 OCTOBER 2026
Visual Thinking in the AI Era
From key concepts and research evidence to AI implementation, instructional design, and professional practice.
See the relationships.
Return to the evidence.
Visual thinking uses internal imagery and external representations to select information, organize relationships, explore change, and test explanations. AI can lower production barriers; its value for learning and decisions depends on people being able to interpret, revise, and question the resulting representations.
The report uses critical narrative synthesis and distinguishes experimental results, theoretical explanations, technical feasibility, and recommendations. Evidence for learner-generated drawing cannot directly establish the learning benefits of AI-generated drawing.
CONCEPTS · METHODS · APPLICATIONS · EVIDENCE
Visual Thinking Knowledge Graph
107 concept entities and 95 explicitly named semantic relationships. Search terms, follow connections, and inspect report passages and references.
Read by chapter
01 — 24Research questions and principal conclusions
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗02Concepts and intellectual traditions of visual thinking
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗03Cognitive mechanisms and individual differences
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗04Evidence and boundary conditions for learning
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗05The grammar and design of visual representations
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗06Value and capability development in the AI era
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗07Technical routes for AI supported visual thinking
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗08An architecture for trustworthy generation and validation
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗09A working method for thinking with AI
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗10Hotel operations and service design cases
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗11Marketing and tourism finance cases
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗12Redesigning an introductory AI course
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗13Classroom implementation and a complete lesson design
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗14Skills and expert role collaboration
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗15Evaluation experiments and research design
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗16Risk management and implementation
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗17Reusable tasks and prompting templates
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗18Terminology and a research agenda
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗19Applications in research reading and knowledge discovery
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗20Design practice and organizational collaboration
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗21Deployment reproducibility and daily use
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗22Integrated case discussions and exercises
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗23Interactive computation and visual simulation
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗24Integrated discussion and priority actions
4 sections · Illustrated reading ↗Full report and supporting materials
The Word and PDF downloads contain the same complete bilingual edition. Web chapters present each language separately.
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References and official documentation
Original English titles are retained for discovery. Read source types and limitations alongside the chapters; preprints are not equivalent to peer-reviewed findings.
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- [4]Blazhenkova, O., & Kozhevnikov, M. (2009). The new object spatial verbal cognitive style model Theory and measurement. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23, 638–663.Psychometric research
- [5]Blazhenkova, O., Becker, M., & Kozhevnikov, M. (2011). Object spatial imagery and verbal cognitive styles in children and adolescents Developmental trajectories in relation to ability. Learning and Individual Differences, 21, 281–287.Developmental correlational research
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- [8]Mayer, R. E. (2021). Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning, third edition, chapter 5.Theory and research synthesis
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- [11]Fiorella, L., & Zhang, Q. (2018). Drawing Boundary Conditions for Learning by Drawing. Educational Psychology Review.Review
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- [30]NIST (2024). Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile. NIST AI 600-1.Official risk framework
- [31]UNESCO (2023). Guidance for generative AI in education and research. UNESCO.Policy guidance
- [32]W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (accessed 2026). Complex Images. Images Tutorial.Official accessibility guidance
- [33]W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (accessed 2026). Understanding Success Criterion 1 4 11 Non text Contrast. WCAG 2.2 guidance.Official accessibility guidance
- [34]Mermaid (accessed 2026). Flowcharts Syntax and Mindmap. Official documentation.Technical documentation
- [35]Vega Lite (accessed 2026). Visualization specification and transformations. Official documentation.Technical documentation
- [36]Wolfram Research (accessed 2026). Manipulate. Wolfram Language Documentation.Technical documentation
- [37]Wolfram Research (accessed 2026). Graph. Wolfram Language Documentation.Technical documentation
- [38]Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (version 2.2). Content Credentials Technical Specification. C2PA.Technical specification
- [39]Dechamps, T., & Skulmowski, A. (2025). The Effective Design of Tasks Involving Learning by Drawing Current Trends and Methodological Progress in Research on Drawing to Learn. Educational Psychology Review, 37.Review; paper record fetched
- [40]Kim, S., et al. (2025). Can the effects of generative drawing on lasting learning be optimized through integration of retrieval practice. Learning and Instruction.Experimental study; search abstract and fetched metadata
- [41]Wu, J., et al. (2026). Visual Generation Unlocks Human Like Reasoning through Multimodal World Models. arXiv 2601.19834; preprint.Preprint technical study
- [42]Zhang, H., et al. (2025). Latent Sketchpad Sketching Visual Thoughts to Elicit Multimodal Reasoning in MLLMs. arXiv 2510.24514; preprint.Preprint technical study