Inducing Visibility and Visual Deduction

Scientists use diagrams not just to visualize objects and relations in their fields, both empirical and theoretical, but to reason with them as tools of their science. While the two dimensional space of diagrams might seem restrictive, scientific diagrams can depict many more than two elements, can be used to visualize the same materials in myriad different ways, and can be constructed in a considerable variety of forms. This article takes up two generic puzzles about 2D visualizations. First, How do scientists in different communities use 2D spaces to depict materials that are not fundamentally spatial? This prompts the distinction between diagrams that operate in different kinds of spaces: real, ideal, and artificial. And second, How do diagrams, in these different usages of 2D space, support various kinds of visual reasoning that cross over between inductive and deductive? The argument links the representational form and content of a diagram (its vocabulary and grammar) with the kinds of inferential and manipulative reasoning that are afforded, and constrained, by scientists' different usages of 2D space.

在各自的领域中，科学家不仅通过图表来把事物和关系可视化，而且将图表 作为一种手段来解释他们的科学。虽然图表的两个维度能展示的内容有限，科学图表却 能够展示远大于两个维度的信息。它们可以通过无数种方式将同一种信息可视化，还可 以被构建成各种不同的形式。这篇文章讨论关于2D 可视化的两个问题。第一，各个领域 的科学家是如何利用二维图表来描绘非空间化信息的？这一点展示了在不同领域发挥 作用的图表之间的区别，比如现实的、想象的、和人为的。 第二，在二维空间图表的不 同使用中，图表是如何支持从归纳到推演的各种种类的可视化分析的？我们的论点结合 了图表的代表性模式和内容（包括语言和语法）与科学家对二维空间的多种使用方式 所展示的推论和巧妙处理的论证。