Transmitting visual information:Icons become words.

Abstract

This abstract is about CAILS, an experimental Comouter Assisted Iconic Language System which deals with three specific areas in communication: Cross-linguistic, visual/spatial concept representation and visual educational technique. Designed for interpersonal communication, this system functions with generally comprehensible visual referents. Each area has some specific syntax which is clear and easy to learn. CAILS takes advantage of visual memory of the user. The basic idea of this system is that an individual can, using basic visual references, compose a message, represent a concept and teach a rule. The specificity of the images eliminates ambiguity. For convenience, we classified visual references or ¨words¨ in the following categories: Hands, Movements, Expression, and Pictures. When properly use, CAILS produce ¨iconic message objects¨ which may be presented to the intended recipient.