Selected Significant Events and Documents 

West Archive, the National Library of Medicine, NIH 

Updated Short Listing, Revised, May 5, 2022

 Working Draft, in Process -- Sample Pages with 12 Excerpts

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Example Item from a Short List of Significant Events and Documents

 

“Dyslexia Is Britain’s Secret Weapon in the Spy War”

 

(1) In June 2006, Thomas G. West was honored to be invited to be the main speaker at the first “Diversity Day” conference in Cheltenham, England, for the staff of GCHQ, the code-making and code-breaking descendants of Bletchley Park (the World War II code breakers and the source of “Ultra,” the extremely secret intelligence source for Winston Churchill, never revealed to the public until the 1970s). According to one employee at GCHQ, “while people with neuro-diversity may be viewed as ‘odd or weird,’ they are ‘fully accepted’ at GCHQ.” 

 

GCHQ officials and cyber experts make it quite clear that their dyslexic employees, among others, are highly valued workers. As one spokesperson said in an article for the Daily Mail, “Dyslexia Is Britain’s Secret Weapon in the Spy War: Top Codebreakers Can Crack Complex Problems Because They Suffer from the Condition . . . . Most people only get to see the jigsaw picture when it’s nearly finished while the dyslexic cryptographists can see what the jigsaw looks like with just two pieces.” (Also see section in Seeing What Others Cannot See, “Seeing the Puzzle with Only Two Pieces -- Learning Differences at GCHQ,” West, 2017, pp. 147-150.)

 

There was an informal gathering the following Saturday after the GCHQ conference for several employees and their families -- with a pub lunch and a walk around the village -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.”

 

At one point, after the walk, West found himself sitting with a group of seven at the edge of our host’s garden, gradually discovering that all of those with him had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Among other things, they discussed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Timeby Mark Haddon and connections with the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze” (involving the significance of “the dog that did not bark”). 

 

It is apparent that organizations such as GCHQ are important places to better understand unexpected patterns in extraordinarily high performance and seek links between visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking. This approach is especially important since conventional professional literature and training is often focused on deficits alone without consideration of special capabilities. (More is to be provided about this most important meeting. Full credit to JT and RT at K4L -- TGW.)

 

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The Context: A Time of Fundamental Change --

“A Return to Visual Thinking”

 

The GCHQ conference was one of many where West was privileged to be provided with an insider’s view of the possible relationships between high-level capabilities together with unexpected weaknesses and learning difficulties. Indeed, with his early publications and talks, West found that he was quickly swept up in waves of fundamental change in views about technology and different ways of thinking.

 

West is the author of three books, In the Mind’s Eye, Thinking Like Einsteinand Seeing What Others Cannot See. From 1991 to 2021, he has given hundreds of presentations in the U.S., and 19 countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia/Pacific Region. 

 

West found that he was invited to provide presentations for a varied group of high-level institutions and organizations as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinking, visual technologies and scientific data visualization along with new ways of thinking about the distinctive capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. 

 

Real World Perspectives

 

In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business. Conference organizers and advocate organization heads were eager to arrange for speakers and panels to share these new ideas with a larger audience of those mostly still unfamiliar with these dramatic changes in perspective, operations and practice. 

 

However, during this time many conventional specialist academics and practicing professionals seemed to find it difficult to understand and appreciate these changes in perspective. They had been trained to rely on traditional tests and measures and a conceptual framework that favored conventional verbal and numerical academic capabilities along with memorization -- instead of visual thinking and “thinking in pictures” -- that is, the manipulation of images or objects in three dimensional space, in the imagination. They valued students who could easily learn old knowledge -- but had little understanding of those best suited to creating new knowledge. 

 

These changes in awareness were partly based on the rapidly emerging great power of the new computer graphic and related technologies during this period. But this new awareness was also based on a renewed recognition of the power of the visual thinking as used by earlier scientists, engineers and inventors, such as Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and others. Thus, “A Return to Visual Thinking” was the main theme of the annual meeting of scientists -- and West’s invited presentation 

-- for the 50 Max Planck Institutes in Germany in 1993. (See item 4, below.)

 

Over time, West noticed that when he spoke about visual talents and learning differences in highly positive ways, with credible positive examples, some of those in his audience felt free, often for the first time, to talk about considerable strengths and hidden weaknesses in themselves, their family members and their most talented co-workers. Remarkably, West noted that the higher up he would go -- among Noble Prize winning scientists, for example -- the more likely he would find those who readily understood these patterns in unexpected weaknesses along with high level strengths. 

 

For example, see especially in item 2, below, the Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, the Fifty-Year Reunion. In a striking and unexpected example, during the course of the conference, among these highly praised, award-winning physicians and highly regarded medical school professors, roughly half of those attending spoke to West of their own dyslexia, the dyslexia of talented coworkers or the dyslexia of highly creative members of their own families. 

 

Accordingly, the events and documents listed here can serve, in part, as an informal preliminary survey of the development of these fundamental observations in various occupations and various parts of the world over three decades. See the sample items listed below for some of the best examples of how these changes in perspective were recognized, adopted and promoted by organizations such as MIT, NASA Ames, GCHQ in the UK, the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, businesses in Singapore and related institutions. 

 

It is considered important to preserve these archive materials for further systematic study of the early years of these important trends -- trends that are likely to increase in importance with the continuing rapid growth of computer power and connectedness. As the machines take over all low level clerical tasks, the creativity and big picture thinking often seen in dyslexics will continue to increase in value. 

 

Broad Impact

 

Over time, West had come to measure the significance of these invited talks, seminars and workshops by the extent to which the simple but powerful ideas he learned from two prescient neurologists were received and given serious consideration by those interested in the strengths and talents of individuals with dyslexia and other learning differences -- together with the related advances in computer graphics, computer simulation, visual thinking and advanced information visualization technologies. 

 

Throughout his early research, West relied on the extensive primary sources made available by the archives and history collections of the Library of Congress and the National Library of Medicine -- along with conference meetings, publications and websites of the computer graphics professional organization ACM-SIGGRAPH and the International Dyslexia Association, among others. 

 

West’s extended listing of selected events and documents, with informal brief descriptions addressed to users, is intended to show evidence of the gradual development of these trends -- to provide researchers, advocates and other archive users a guide to available resources along with models for future programs and efforts.

 

Early Recognition -- “Best of the Best”

 

In the Mind’s Eye, West’sfirst book, was awarded a gold seal and selected as one of the “best of the best” for the year out of some 6000 reviewed booksby the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association(one of only 12 books in the broad “Psychology” category, including books on “neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry”).

 

The book has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Over the years, West has provided many presentations for scientific, medical, art, design, computer and business groups. The interest in these topics, across many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator of the timeliness and broad impact of these perspectives and publications -- largely initially based on the original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Gechwind and his students in the 1980s.

 

The second edition of In the Mind’s Eyeincludes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said “In the Mind's Eyebrings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's Frames of Mindas a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. In the Mind's Eyeis just such a book.” 

 

A broad and enduring interest in these topics is further indicated by the reissue in July 2020 of a Third Edition (first time in paperback) of West’s first book,In The Mind’s Eye. With over 29 years in print, the book continues to be what they call in the trade an “evergreen” -- a book that never dates and never stops selling. The two previous revised and expanded editions (updated edition and second edition) each contain Epilogues with some 40 to 50 pages of new material. 

 

 

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Selected Events and Documents, Continued

 

(2) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, National Library of Medicine; Gerald M. Edelman, Scripps Research Institute (Nobel Prize winner); Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (MacArthur Prize winner); and Thomas G. West, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University. 

 

Markle Scholars were identified as the best medical school professors and teachers in the US and Canada during several decades after WWII. Dr. Lindberg suggested that West provide a brief proposal for a talk at the gathering. Indeed, as it turned out, the organizers were interested. 

 

In his talk, West spoke primarily of visual thinking among creative scientists and recent developments in visual technologies and computer graphics. However, West also spoke of how visual thinking and associated innovation were sometimes linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. Remarkably, during the course of the three-day conference, roughly one half of the attendees and their spouses spoke to West about their own dyslexia (two surgeons from Johns Hopkins, for example) or told stories of dyslexia among their coworkers or the more creative and innovative members of their own families. (See a highly supportive letter received later from a Canadian Markle Scholar; to be provided. -- TGW) 

 

(3) A small, high-level, visualization, science and technology conference at MIT. Program description: “IM: Image and Meaning Conference, MIT, June 2001, Envisioning and Communicating Science and Technology. Who We Are: In late spring of 2001 we have come together at MIT to consider images in science to learn from each other to add something of our own, We are shown here in name and image.” 

 

Attendance was by invitation only. Each attendee was asked to provide an image that represented their work -- to be worn as part of their nametag -- for discussion with other attendees. The conference handout (to be provided separately for the archive) includes 210 images with names and organizations. 

 

Speakers and attendee participants included Benoit Mandelbrot (his image was the famous “Mandelbrot Set”), E.O. Wilson (an image of a tree) and Victor Spitzer (an image from the Visible Human Project; he was one of the developers of the Visible Human Project for NLM). 

 

The image for West was the first x-ray crystallographic image produced by Sir William Lawrence Bragg, used to discover Bragg’s Law, which is basic for the determination of crystal atomic structure, and later, the discovery of the structure of DNA. (This image was supplied to West by Bragg’s daughter, Patience Bragg Thomson, former head of a school for dyslexic students in London. This family includes, over five generations, many with visual occupations, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics.) 

 

West had several conversations with Dr. Mandelbrot at this MIT conference. Dr. Mandelbrot talked about the hostility he encountered from most conventional mathematicians, especially at Harvard University, where he had been teaching at the time. He had moved on to Yale University where they showed respect for Mandelbrot’s highly innovative approach to mathematics. 

 

West mentioned his own interest in highly talented visual thinkers and dyslexics and asked whether Dr. Mandelbrot had ever encountered any dyslexics among his work associates. He laughed and said: “If you ask my wife, she is convinced that I am dyslexic myself.” Later, West heard of several additional reports from others where Mandelbrot had spoken elsewhere of his own dyslexia. 

 

West was not surprised by this revelation because Dr. Mandelbrot’s work is extremely visual in nature and extremely original in orientation and approach, successfully employing the most modern computer graphics technologies (starting with the most primitive early forms of computer graphics, well before others). These aspects are seen as signature indictors of the work of a classic visually oriented approach as seen in many dyslexics.

 

(4) In November 1993, West was invited to speak at the annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. The invitation initially was based on a short article by West in Computers and Physics. The presentation in English and the German language proceedings volume have been donated to the archive collection. (To be confirmed.) During informal discussions after his talk, West was told of dyslexia and other learning differences within the families of famous German scientists. 

 

It is noteworthy that this large high-level meeting in November 1993 was dominated by conventional “main frame thinking” and remarkably antiquated technologies. For example, no graphics videos could be shown in the large lecture theater. We had to move to a small conference room to show video clips on a TV. (This situation is shown in one of the photographs provided in the printed proceedings book; West is shown looking at a computer graphic image on a TV screen.) In dramatic contrast, in the conference in Amsterdam in October of that same year the designers, artists, architects and computer professionals had already adopted and were using the latest technologies in all the presentations. (See item 5, below.) 

 

See chapter in the book compiled from the proceedings of this conference: West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, edited and translated by P. Wittenberg and T. Plesser. Göttingen, Germany, November 1993. Published as a book in 1994, in German: “Ruckkehr zum visuellen Denken, Forschung und Wissenschftliches Rechnen: Beitrage anlasslich des 10. EGV-Benutzertreffens der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Göttingen, November 1993.” 

 

(5) Invited speaker. The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and Mediamaticmagazine. 

 

Program description: “DoP is a ground breaking conference for which leading thinkers from the fields of graphic and industrial design, architects, information technology, philosophy, computer science, business and media will assemble . . . to consider the cultural and economic challenges of interactivity + the role of design in turning information into knowledge, for example through the visualization of complex scientific data. . . .” 

 

Other speakers included Louis Rossetto, the founding editor and publisher of the first Wiredmagazine (published in Europe well before moving to the US and later sold to a major US publisher). West was recruited to speak at this first conference of the newly formed Netherlands Design Institute based on a talk he had given only two months earlier at the ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles (where he had been video taped by a NDI scout from Amsterdam). This is the only time West observed an unusual Dutch practice: He was paid his speaker’s fee in cash, using crisp US bills of $100.

 

Please see a letter (original to be provided separately) from a designer met at this Amsterdam conference. An excerpt: “It was a pleasure to have met you at the ‘Doors of Perception’ seminar in the Netherlands. I enjoyed listening to your talk on visual thinking. It was inspiring and was very appropriate in that particular forum. I found your talk of particular relevance to my work with LEGO. . . . I work for LEGO in a capacity as a designer visualizer. I’m sure you understand how your talk and book was a great inspiration. In the Minds Eyeis a real eye opener. Your book has given me a detailed insight into the way my mind works and why it behaves the way it does. The book is well researched and it is edited in such a way that it becomes a useful reference book. In the Minds Eyeshould be read by teachers and parents alike who have children in their care that show traits of dyslexia. It will enlighten them all about the gift of dyslexia and its many advantages that it can provide the individual and possibly society. As we discussed during our meeting in the Netherlands, the Vice President of my research department at LEGO . . . is a cofounder of a school for dyslexics in Brande, Jutland. It is the first school of its type in Denmark and has a campus of 50 students.” K.B., Lyngby, Denmark, 21st April, 1994. 

 

(6) The Orton Dyslexia Society, 47th Annual Conference, Boston, Mass., November 6-9, 1996. West was selected as one of four symposium speakers along with Albert M. Galaburda, MD, and Gordon Sherman, PhD, both of Harvard Medical School. 

 

The title of West’s talk was: “ ‘Strephs,’ Tumbling Symbols and Technological Change: The Implications of Dyslexia Research in a World Turned Upside Down.” 

 

The program booklet for this Boston conference included an article by West reprinted with permission from Computer Graphics, August 1996 issue: “Images and Reversals, Talking Less, Drawing More.” 

 

This article was introduced by the conference booklet editor: “The following article was prepared by Thomas G. West as part of the series of articles requested by the editor of Computer Graphicsmagazine, a publication of the International Association of Computer Graphics Professionals, ACM SIGGRAPH. 

 

“Mr. West says that he sees himself as often serving as a bridge between worlds that know virtually nothing of each other -- such as those dealing with the brain and dyslexia on one side -- and those dealing with advanced computers, film animation, scientific data visualization and technological change on the other. 

 

“This particular article addresses the possible great changes in education and work that might be expected from the spread of new computer graphic technologies. However, you will note that Mr. West introduces to this technological audience the ideas of nonverbal talent and dyslexic gifts by referring to quotations from the German poet Goethe and the modern British science writer Nigel Calder. 

 

“He says that he meets many individuals with dyslexia within the highly creative computer graphics community. Perhaps we can help our students with dyslexia have a more positive attitude about their own talents and future prospects through the ideas presented here in this column.”

[An excerpt:] “ ‘We should talk less and draw more. I personally would like to renounce speech altogether, and, and like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say in sketches.’ These are indeed strange and remarkable words to be coming from a famous writer -- the great German poet and author of Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe’s words are quoted by the essayist Stephen Jay Gould, who explains it is quite notable that words occupy such an important place in human culture, in spite of the fact that we are highly visual by nature. 

 

“ ‘Primates are visual animals,’ explains Gould. ‘No other group of mammals relies so strongly on sight. Our attraction to images as the source of understanding is both primal and pervasive. Writing with its linear sequencing of ideas, is an historical afterthought in the history of human cognition. Yet traditional scholarship has lost this route to our past. Most research is reported by text alone, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Pictures, if included it all, a poorly reproduced section gathered in the center, divorced from relevant text, and treated as little more than decoration.’ (Eight Little Piggies, Norton, 1993) 

 

“Gould touches on a matter that I expect will become more and more important in the near term and the long term. It seems inevitable, as new visualization tools are applied effectively in more and more fields, that visual talents and skills will have greater and greater value in the economic marketplace, as well as the scientific laboratory. However, during the transition, I would expect a lot of debate about the proper roles of visual versus verbal ways of thinking.” [End of excerpt. The Orton Dyslexia Society was later renamed The International Dyslexia Association in Memory of Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton.]

 

(7) National Dyslexia Research Foundation, The Extraordinary Brain Series, Hawaii, June 27-July 2, 1998. Thomas West and Maryanne Wolf (Tufts University) spoke on “The Abilities of Those with Reading disabilities.” Other speakers included Glenn D. Rosen, PhD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston; Drake D. Duane, MD, Institute for Behavioral Neurology, Scottsdale, AZ; Daniel Geschwind MD, PhD, UCLA School of Medicine; Sally Shaywitz, MD, Bennett Shaywitz, MD, Yale University Medical School; and Frank B. Wood, PhD, Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The conference talks were collected into a book: Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” 

 

(8) Wadsworth Center, Albany, New York, May 31, 2018. West gave talk titled: “Seeing What Others Cannot See -- Visual Thinking, Different Thinkers and Scientific Discovery.” For the state of New York, the Wadsworth Center is similar to the U.S. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indeed, it was established long before the Federal level CDC and has a similar broad range of responsibilities and missions. (Details of mission programs to be provided.) 

 

West was invited to speak by the Head of the Center, a virologist, who he met at a dinner of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The visit included an extensive tour of the Center facilities, programs and missions -- along with several Q&A discussions with Center staff. 

 

(9) The New York Branch of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Language & Medical Symposia on Dyslexia, March 18-20, 1993. As the economy moves from a primarily verbal orientation to one that is visual-spatial, the talents of dyslexics will be increasingly needed as various visual technologies are adopted. 

 

Presentation title: “Dyslexic Talents in a Changing Technological Context.” Speaker: Thomas G. West, MA. Chair: Anne Ford, Chairman of the Board, National Center for Learning Disabilities, New York, N.Y. It is noteworthy that West was invited to give this talk only two years after his first book was published in 1991 -- and that he was introduced by the Board Chair of NCLD, a major organization in the field. At this time, the conference of the New York Branch was often as big as or bigger than the annual national conference of the Orton Dyslexia Society (that later became the International Dyslexia Association, as noted above). 

 

Many of the major figures in the field spoke at this three-day meeting. This included Patience Thomson, Head of Fairley House School, London, England -- who Thomas West and his wife Margaret later came to know well through several conferences and visits in the US and the UK. Patience Bragg Thomson is daughter of the famous Sir Lawrence Bragg, who received the Nobel Prize, with his father, for their work with x-ray crystallography -- and who later was the boss for Watson and Crick when they discovered the structure of DNA using his techniques (both of whom also received the Nobel Prize). The Bragg Thomson family over five generations includes many visual thinkers, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics. 

 

Other speakers at the New York meeting were: Martha B. Denckla, Bennett Shaywitz, Albert Galaburda, Frank B. Wood, Roger Saunders, Edward Hallowell, Wilson Anderson, Barbara Wilson, Drake D. Duane and Diana Hanbury King. (Full program listing to be provided.) 

 

(10) West’s lecture was part of a Director's Colloquium for scientists and staff of NASA Ames Research Center (at Moffett Field in California’s Silicon Valley). Standing room only, at sides and back of large lecture theater, at this large organization with many, many visually-oriented scientists, technologists, mathematicians and engineers. West’s talk was also part of an associated visitor tour. 

 

West and his wife were shown massive wind tunnels and many scientific exhibits -- including new raw data on a large wall of flat screen TVs indicating possible planets orbiting hundreds of stars fresh from the Kepler satellite. 

 

When one of the West party asked whether there might be life on other planets, they were treated to wave after wave of stars and planets washing across on the large wall made up of many TV screens -- so, hundreds and thousands of possibilities (and these were only the planets that happened to be “in front” of the star at the time of observation). 

 

(11) The Learning Disability Association of Taiwan. Three day-long presentations in three different cities. Three different translators -- from English into Mandarin Chinese language, alternating, English-Mandarin. One formal professor served as the last of the three translators. She seemed initially reserved about the content of the talks. However, in time, she warmed to the topic and began to elaborate and provided her own related examples and commentary along with the Mandarin translation of the English. During a break, the organizer requested that the professor stay within the translations alone. (West, however, was greatly pleased to see the new interest and support from this previously rather reserved professor.) 

 

Travel to Taiwan was linked to a prior conference in Hong Kong conducted in English and Cantonese (item 17 below, not provided here). (The organizer of the Taiwan talks, Wei-Pi Hung, over 12 months, translated West’s book, In the Mind’s Eye, into Chinese, with traditional characters. This book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations. To be confirmed.) Discussions of dyslexia in Taiwan were especially interesting since the culture puts extreme pressure on students. They should look pale and sleep deprived -- or they are not studying hard enough.

 

(12) In November 2014, West was invited to give five talks over one week for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore as part of effort to take advantage of the distinctive talents exhibited by dyslexic children and adults. Long a leader in technological and commercial innovation, Singapore is leading the world with this effort as well. (Several publications and web videos are available. Much more to come for this section.)

 

Note: Full listing of some 50 - 60 events and documents, to date, available on request.

 

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Selected Recent Events with Additional Biographical Detail and Excerpts

 

West’s three books have had a number of editions and printings -- In the Mind’s Eye(with editions in 1991, 1997, 2009 and 2020), Thinking Like Einstein(2004) and Seeing What Others Cannot See (2017). From 1991 to 2021, Thomas G. West has given hundreds of presentations in the U.S., and 19 countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia/Pacific region -- including Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. 

 

An indicator of continuing interest in these topics is that West was asked in recent years (2019-2022) to join a global network, based in Stockholm, Sweden, of those with high interest in the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults. This network includes researchers, advocates, practitioners and academics from Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield universities in the UK as well as individuals associated with the Nobel Prize Foundation in Stockholm and a former advisor to the Swedish Royal Family (where three of five are dyslexic). 

 

The regular meetings of the group have been held via Zoom every 4 to 6 weeks -- including network members from Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and the US. This network provides evidence that the interest in dyslexic strengths is global and continues to be a main focus for many researchers and practitioners.

 

On June 9, 2020, West gave the commencement address (via Zoom) for graduates of Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland, a high school for college-bound dyslexic students. (A copy of this address is to be provided in an appendix.) West has given additional talks (via Zoom and related technologies, recorded and/or live) in October and November 2020 for groups based in Amsterdam, Holland, Cairo, Egypt, and a group associated George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia -- as well as the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) annual conference based in the U.S. (previously planned for Denver, Colorado, later made virtual). In June 2021, West spoke via Zoom as part of a panel for a dyslexia and talent conference organized by the Dyslexia Association of Singapore. 

 

Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, Seeing What Others Cannot See, West investigates how different kinds of brains and different ways of thinking can help to make discoveries and solve problems in innovative and unexpected ways -- ways of thinking often quite different from conventionally trained experts. 

 

With this book, West focuses on what he has learned over some 30 years from a group of extraordinarily creative, intelligent and interesting people -- strong visual thinkers and those with dyslexia, Asperger’s syndrome, or other different ways of thinking, learning and working.

 

The items in this listing provide a sampling of some of the more significant presentations, events and publications -- showing the broad range of institutions and organizations that have become increasingly interested in understanding the creative and innovative styles of thinking exhibited by dyslexics and other different thinkers. A section with selected reviews and comments is provided in Appendix B.

 

Accordingly, this listing serves as a checklist of some of the associated materials not to be missed in the boxes and binders donated to the NLM History of Medicine permanent archive. The related documents include drafts of talks and research papers, printed programs with topic descriptions, speaker bios, newspaper clippings and other publicity, conference proceedings, associated drafts, chapters, books, journal articles. transcripts of oral histories (Caltech and others) and other materials -- including a listing acknowledging key individuals who have arranged talks, conferences and publications and have contributed to this effort in various ways over some 30 years. 

 

Related websites, videos, blogs, audio recordings, photographs, overhead transparency sheets, 35 mm film slides and Power Point images have been (or will be) provided separately. The West blog (below) has already been incorporated into the NLM History of Medicine digital archive system, with over 90 articles and commentaries to date. 

 

Blog: (inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com)

 

 

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APPENDIX A

 

Note: The article below was requested for the book on the Dr. Lindberg’s life and career, published online February 1, 2022, by IOS Press, Amsterdam. (Hard cover, Much-April.)

 

Transforming Biomedical Informatics and Health Information Access B.L. Humphreys et al. (Eds.) © 2021 The authors and IOS Press. This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). doi:10.3233/SHTI211027 

Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., Visual Thinker and Medical Visionary

Thomas G. WEST1 Washington D.C. U.S.A.

Keywords. Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., visual thinking, computer graphics technology, dyslexia, U.S. National Library of Medicine

1. Introduction 

From the late 1980s until his retirement in 2015, I was privileged to observe the forward- thinking and astonishing depth, range, and liveliness of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) under the direction of Donald A. B. Lindberg M.D. 

As an outsider, I observed from my point of view as an ordinary library researcher. I mainly utilized NLM’s History of Medicine collections for information about innovative scientists like Michael Faraday and medical pioneers such as Dr. Harvey Cushing. Initially, I used the old paper index catalog cards, microfilm, and the early NLM mainframe computer information systems to research and prepare the manuscript for my first book, In the Mind’s Eye, published in spring 1991 [1]. 

I first met Dr. Lindberg at a gathering after a lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. He asked about my work. I explained that my research focus concerned the talents of dyslexic individuals - together with visual thinking in the history of medicine and science. I was surprised to discover that Dr. Lindberg also was interested in these topics. 

I later learned that these interests were partly a reflection of his personal history. Don’s father was an architect. Don was trained in a highly visual specialty, pathology, and some family members were dyslexic. As is often the case, this kind of personal history helps some to understand and appreciate the puzzling mixed strengths and weaknesses that accompany these life patterns. 

I also was fascinated that Don’s interests included then-rapidly developing computer graphic technologies as well as the hidden talents of dyslexics (who often see things differently) to innovate and sometimes make scientific discoveries before conventionally trained experts in some fields. Over time, I began to appreciate that Dr. Lindberg had a remarkable ability to see where things were going and attract highly talented and creative people for his staff, NLM’s Board of Regents, and the Library’s diverse, inventive projects. 

Over the years, Dr. Lindberg assumed leadership positions in several major areas - archiving massive amounts of genetic code information (within the National Center for Biomedical Information), providing research information in clinicaltrials.gov, and even leading a federal government-wide effort - the High-Performance Computing and 

1 Corresponding author: thomasgwest@gmail.com 

T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. 417 

Communications Program (HPCC). He once remarked to me how difficult it was to deal with 500 HPCC emails a day. 

Dr. Lindberg’s interest in visual thinking and dyslexia was evidenced when he asked me to be the after-dinner speaker at a meeting of NLM’s Board of Regents [2]. He accorded me the honor of describing the ideas I developed during my research and writing. I began my BOR speech with these words: 

“My talk this evening is about a return to visual thinking. My subtitle ‘new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations,’ encapsulates my main thesis - that as we begin to use the newest technologies in really powerful ways (which we have hardly begun), we will begin to tap into some of our oldest and most “primitive” neurological (visual spatial) talents. In so doing, we will begin to see ourselves and our world with very different eyes – leading, in time, to fundamentally different attitudes towards education and concepts of intelligence, as well as the skills and talents that are considered to be the most valuable. . . .” 

2. Advanced Applications 

At NLM in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I witnessed the rapid changes in computer systems happening worldwide. Dr. Lindberg seemed to be simultaneously interested in the newest technologies, and at the same time, he respected the insights and sophisticated knowledge of early researchers and traditional cultures. 

For example, one morning I chanced to attend another lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. The speaker was a sleepy young computer programmer and software engineer. He had been up all night, as he said, releasing to the World Wide Web thousands of copies of a new computer program he and a coworker designed - called a ‘browser.’ 

As it turned out, it was ‘Mosaic,’ the first web browser of its kind. The young speaker was Marc Andreessen, then working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Later, he became famous in the computer world for Netscape and the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Of course, these initiatives helped enable access to the Internet. They revolutionized mass communication - and I was privileged to see the very first day - primarily because of NLM and its forward-thinking director. 

3. Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a 

During his career, Dr. Lindberg became known as a significant innovator in using computers for healthcare research and practice. Under his direction, NLM pioneered broad access to medical information with Medline and PubMed. But Don also promoted a deeper understanding of less well-known groups with programs such as ‘Women in Medicine’ and ‘Native Voices.’ 

‘Native Voices’ exemplified how Dr. Lindberg promoted the investigation of the traditional forms of medicine, widely ignored previously. In later years, I was thrilled to see that NLM played a significant role in a visit to Washington, D.C., during the round- the-world journey of the traditional Polynesian canoe, the Hokule’a - a double-hulled sailing canoe that enabled the early Polynesian peoples to travel among the islands of the broad Pacific Ocean. 

418T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. 

I was delighted to see Dr. Lindberg’s interest in this area. Previously, I followed the renewed practice of traditional navigation methods and the significant influence of its rebirth in generating pride and reviving traditional Polynesian culture. Of course, the early traditional navigators used the stars and other natural signs. However, traditional navigators also taught themselves to feel long-distance ocean swells to maintain a heading - and how the absence of ‘shadow’ in these swells could indicate the presence of an island, out of sight, over the horizon. I wrote about these insights in my second book, Thinking Like Einstein [3]. Indeed, the intended full title for the second book was to have been: Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a. 

Dr. Lindberg was well aware of how traditional cultures used visual abilities in highly sophisticated ways - with a minimum of technology and a sophisticated integration of profoundly understood natural forces. I was amazed and delighted when the Hokule'a tied up for several days at the Washington Canoe Club on the Potomac River in the middle of Washington, DC. Nainoa Thompson, the chief traditional navigator, gave a major talk at NLM about traditional navigation methods. 

Like Andreessen, NLM provided a stage for an important person (who was not well known outside of Polynesia) to provide fresh perspectives and ideas. In a way, both talks were so typical of Dr. Lindberg’s NLM. 

Moreover, I enjoyed several conversations with Nainoa at the Canoe Club, where he confirmed his special visual-spatial skills in traditional navigation probably were linked to his dyslexia. We talked about our everyday dyslexia experiences and the dyslexia of some family members. It all seemed to support the theory from Harvard neurologist and dyslexia researcher Norman Geschwind, M.D., who suggested the visual-spatial abilities often seen among dyslexics yielded an array of socio-cultural benefits [4]. 

4. Dr. Lindberg’s Prescient Leadership 

Over time, I beheld how prescient Dr. Lindberg was in providing leadership during an era of enormous change and rapid progress. Don used his broad interests and deep understanding of the potential of computer systems in the service of medical knowledge and practice. 

One especially forward-looking conference was organized in mid-February 2000. At Dr. Lindberg’s direction. The ‘Visualization Research Agenda Meeting - The Impact of Visualization Technologies - Using Vision to Think’ considered how: ‘new visualization technologies are giving us new ways of seeing and understanding: bringing diverse worlds together, transforming the nature of education and work, redefining what we understand is talent and intelligence.’ The meeting focused on the implications of visualization technology for education and professional training, as well as how to build an appropriate research program. 

It was a small but diverse meeting with only 22 attendees. NLM’s participants included Dr. Lindberg, Alexa McCray, Michael Ackerman, and Steve Phillips. Other attendees represented: five institutes at the U.S. National Institutes of Health; two from the Smithsonian Institution; three from computer graphics organizations; and six persons with knowledge and experience regarding dyslexia, giftedness, and the brain’s evolution. 

Among those in attendance was Alvy Ray Smith, Ph.D., a strong advocate for the power of computer graphics in many spheres. Dr. Smith was one of the two founders of the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, CA. Dr. Smith was a member of NLM’s Board of Regents and helped with the Visible Human Project and other related programs. 

T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. 419 

Other attendees included William J. Dreyer, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, who provided a striking example of the power of dyslexic visual thinking in science and medicine. Dr. Dreyer had been a classic dyslexic when young; his reading, spelling, and arithmetic assessment scores were substandard. But having performed well on other tests, Dr. Dreyer went on to study biology - and gradually realized he could tell his professors what experiments to do and what the results would be. 

Previously, Dr. Dreyer revealed that his dyslexic imagination enabled him to visualize molecular biology and chemistry processes that led to a new and controversial theory about the human immune system. Dr. Dreyer espoused the theory for about 12 years - providing concepts based on data from instruments that he designed and built himself. However, Dr. Dreyer’s data was in a form so new and unconventional that almost everyone in his field could not understand what he was talking about. 

Years later, Dr. Dreyer was vindicated and proven correct. When Susumu Tonegawa was awarded a Nobel Prize (physiology or medicine, 1987) for work he had done in Switzerland, his innovative sequencing work demonstrated (through experiments that were illegal in the U.S. at the time) that Dreyer and his colleague’s predictions were correct. In the words of two scientific historians of this period: ‘This experiment marked the point of no return for the domination of the antibody diversity question by nucleotide studies: it was Susumu Tonegawa’s final proof of the Dreyer-Bennett V-C translocation hypothesis through the use of restriction enzymes’ [5]. 

Dr. Lindberg’s views on dyslexic insight were summarized in a quotation he kindly provided for the back cover of my third book, Seeing What Others Cannot See. 

‘West argues convincingly that dyslexics . . . seem to fail in elementary school learning while excelling at the broader level of graduate school. Many whose stories he recites were smashing successes in business. West urges that this is because of extra gifts in visual learning and thinking. He goes beyond praising dyslexics’ hidden strengths in visual thinking and learning, their ability to see what others cannot see - he demands that we stop hiding the imaginative strengths of all children under their weaknesses in reading.’ - Donald Lindberg, M.D., Director Emeritus, National Library of Medicine [6]. 

5. Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion 

A major conference where Dr. Lindberg and I were on program provided insights into the history of medical education. The 50th reunion of Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine occurred from September 17-19, 1998, in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Other speakers included: Gerald M. Edelman, Scripps Research Institute (Nobel Prize winner), and Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (MacArthur Prize winner). Markle Scholars were professors identified by their medical school deans as the best teachers in the U.S. and Canada for several decades after World War II. 

In my talk, I spoke primarily about visual thinking among creative scientists and some then-recent developments in computer graphic technologies. However, I also mentioned how visual thinking and associated innovation sometimes were linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. 

Remarkably, during the three-day conference, many (nearly one half of the attendees and their spouses) spoke to me about their dyslexia (two surgeons from Johns Hopkins, for example) or told stories of dyslexia among their family members or their more creative and innovative coworkers. 

420T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. 

As I look back, I am enormously grateful for the privilege of knowing Dr. Lindberg and his wife, Mary. Rightly, it is now often said both presided over the Golden Age of the National Library of Medicine. 

Dr. Lindberg’s vision was broad and deep, often including early consideration of diverse topics that only later became evident within the mainstream. Don took over a massive medical library primarily designed to serve various medical specialists - and using the newest technologies, he pushed the boundaries to serve the nation and, eventually, the world. 

References

.    [1]  West TG. In the mind’s eye, creative visual thinkers, gifted dyslexics and the rise of visual technologies. 1sted. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 1991. 3rd Ed. Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group; 2020. 


.    [2]  West TG. A return to visual thinking: new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations. Bethesda, MD.: NLM Board of Regents Meeting; May 26, 1993. 


.    [3]  West TG. Thinking like Einstein: returning to our visual roots with the emerging revolution in computer information visualization. Amherst NY.: Prometheus Books; 2004. 


.    [4]  Geschwind N, Galaburda AM. Cerebral lateralization: biological mechanisms, associations, and pathology. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press; 1987, p. 97-104. 


.    [5]  Tauber, AI, Podolsky SH. The generation of diversity: clonal selection theory and the rise of molecular immunology. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; 1997, p. 207. 


.    [6]  West TG. Seeing what others cannot see: the hidden advantages of visual thinkers and differently wired brains. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 2017. 


 

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APPENDIX B

 

Foreword with Selected Reviews and Comments -- T. G. West 

 

Foreword to the Second Edition of In the Mind’s Eye

by Oliver Sacks, M.D.

 

“Although, as a neurologist, I sometimes see cases of alexia—the loss of a previously existing ability to read, usually caused by a stroke in the visual areas of the brain— congenital difficulties in reading, dyslexias, are not something I often encounter, especially with a mostly geriatric practice such as my own. Thus I have been particularly fascinated—sometimes astonished—by the wide range of considerations which Thomas G. West has brought together in this seminal investigation of dyslexia, In the Mind's Eye.  

 

“People with dyslexia are often regarded as defective, as missing something—a facility in reading or linguistic thinking—which the rest of us have. But those of us who are predominantly verbal or ‘lexical’ thinkers could just as well be thought of as ‘avisuals’ [defective in visual thinking]. There may indeed be a sort of reciprocity between lexical and visual powers, and West makes a convincing argument that a substantial section of the population, often highly intelligent, may combine reading problems with heightened visual powers, and are often adept at compensating for their problems in one way or another—even though they may suffer greatly at school, where so much is based on reading. Some of our greatest scientists and artists would probably be diagnosed today as dyslexic, as West shows in his profiles of Einstein, Edison, da Vinci, Yeats, and others. West himself is dyslexic — this, no doubt, has strongly influenced his life and research interests, but it also gives him a uniquely sympathetic understanding of dyslexia from the inside as well as the outside.

 

“My own experience seems to be in the opposite camp—I learned to read very early, and my own thinking is largely in terms of concepts and words. I am rather deficient in visual imagery, and have a great deal of difficulty recognizing places and even people. When I met Temple Grandin, the autistic animal psychologist who is clearly a visual thinker (one of her books is titledThinking in Pictures), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How doyou think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.

 

“The idea of compensation for various neurological ‘deficits’ is well supported by neuroscientific studies, which have shown, for instance, that people blind from birth have heightened tactile, auditory, and musical powers, or that congenitally deaf people who use sign language have heightened visual and spatial capacities, and perhaps a special attunement to facial expression. People with dyslexia, similarly, may develop various strategies to compensate for difficulties in reading. They are often very highly skilled at auditory comprehension or memorization, at pattern recognition, complex spatial reasoning or visual imagination. Such visual thinkers, indeed, may be especially gifted and vital to many fields; among them may well be the next generation of creative geniuses in computer modeling and graphics.

 

“In the Mind's Eyebrings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. Its accent is not so much on pathology as on how much human minds vary. It stands alongside Howard Gardner's Frames of Mindas a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”

 

Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist residing in the US, is most widely known for his book Awakenings(1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well known are his books An Anthropologist from Mars(1995), Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf(1989) and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat(1985). A recent book is titled The Mind’s Eye(2010). The late Dr. Sacks was professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and maintained a private practice in New York City. Sacks considered that his literary style followed the tradition of 19th-century “clinical anecdotes,” a style that focuses on informal case histories, following the writings of Alexander Luria. One commentator noted that Sack’s work has been featured in a “broader range of media than those of any other contemporary medical author.” The New York Timessaid that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.” 

 

Selected Reviews and Comments -- In the Mind’s Eye

 

“I would like to thank you for the copy of your book . . . which I read with considerable interest. I wasn’t aware, and I am enormously proud that I share my learning problems with such distinguished characters as Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Sir Winston Churchill, Gen. George Patton and William Butler Yeats. I found your detailed analysis of the various deficiencies very informative and I think your book is a real contribution to the field.”

 

-- Baruj Benacerraf, M.D., letter of August 5, 1994. The late Dr. Benacerraf was Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School and was past President of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston. A Nobel laureate for discoveries in immunology (1980 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine), Dr. Benacerraf was recognized as a distinguished dyslexic in 1988, receiving the Margaret Byrd Rawson Award from the National Institute of Dyslexia. Together with his life-long difficulties with reading, writing and spelling, he observed that he (along with other family members) has a special facility with visualizing space and time--an ability that he believes contributed greatly to his scientific research and discoveries.

 

“Since he first published In the Mind's Eye18 years ago, Thomas G. West has been at the forefront of a growing number of experts who recognize that the ‘dys’ in dyslexia is often far less important to those who have it than the often remarkable abilities in reasoning, visualization, and pattern recognition that frequently accompany this condition. The impact of this now classic work upon the dyslexic families and individuals that we have the privilege to work with--the encouragement and insight it has provided--is incalculable . . . . Everyone who is dyslexic, has a child with dyslexia, or works with such individuals will be encouraged and enlightened by this marvelous book. For those tired of an educational system that too often treats dyslexic children like ugly ducklings, it is a field guide to the glories of the swan. We cannot possibly recommend it highly enough."

 

-- Brock Eide, MD, MA, and Fernette Eide, MD, email of August 2008. The Eides are founders of the Eide Neurolearning Clinic in Edmonds, Washington, and are authors of The Mislabeled Child (Hyperion, 2006) and The Dyslexic Advantage(Hudson Street Press, 2011). 

 

“Interestingly, dyslexia is found to be often associated with talent. . . .  It’s not unusual for children with perceived general learning disabilities to display an exceptional ability that results in their placement in programs for the specially gifted. . . .  Perhaps no one has championed the association between dyslexia and talent more than Thomas G. West, author of In the Mind’s Eye. . . . West’s research focuses on the correlation of very high success with the prevalence of dyslexia, a relationship that will likely be the focus of more research in the years ahead.” 

 

-- Jim Romeo, New York Academy of Sciences, Update Magazine, April/May 2004, “Getting Scientific about Why Johnny Can’t Read--Understanding Dyslexia.” 

 

 “Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [In the Mind’s Eyeby Thomas G. West] before I wrote Thinking in Picturesseveral years ago. I recommend it to teachers, parents and education policymakers. West profiles people with dyslexia who are visual thinkers, and his conclusions on the link between visual thinking and creativity are similar to mine.”

 

-- Temple Grandin, “The List,” The Weekmagazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included In the Mind’s Eyeon her list of  her six favorite books. 

 

“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of In the Mind’s Eye].  It was wonderful. I think that visual thinking in both autism/Asperger and dyslexia are very similar. Your descriptions match the descriptions I get from people on the autism spectrum. I share your concern that educators do not understand the creative visual thinking mind.  I give talks to parents and teachers all the time and I emphasize that they need to develop a child's strengths. I am really pleased that you are going to use my quote.  I love the Oliver Sacks foreword. Sincerely, Temple Grandin”

 

-- Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir Thinking in Pictures(dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book Animals in Translation. An HBO cable TV film based on Grandin’s life debuted February 6, 2010, starring Claire Dane. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews -- being nominated for 15 Emmy Awards and winning seven. 

 

“Thomas West brings to life the fascinating capacities and syndromes that arise from our visual-spatial imagination. His book proves beyond doubt that we are not all points on a single bell curve of intelligence.

 

-- Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences(BasicBooks, 1983) and Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century(Basic Books, 1999). A MacArthur Prize Fellow, he is affiliated with Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center.

 

“Dyslexia and other learning differences are commonly seen as disabilities, but they must also be seen as distinctive abilities, different (and often superior) modes of perceiving and understanding the world. As Thomas West shows, some of our greatest minds, from Einstein and Edison to Churchill and da Vinci, have been visual thinkers who today might be labeled ‘learning disabled.’ In the Mind’s Eyemakes a powerful case that the dyslexic-visual mind may be full of creative human potential, and is as crucial a part of our cognitive heritage as any other.” -- Oliver Sacks, MD

 

-- Blurb above sent to Thomas G. West by Dr. Oliver Sacks for use with the second edition of In the Mind’s Eye, October 23, 2008. 

 

Additional Reviews and Comments -- In the Mind’s Eye

 

“The computer is the most malleable tool we’ve ever invented. The Turing revolution, which brought it to us, has proceeded over its 60-year history to absorb field after field of human endeavor. First was simple number crunching. Then text processing, table making, pie charting, data basing, and a host of other, more sophisticated, fields have gone digital with the new tool as human brain amplifier. Visualization is the latest domain to become ‘ordinary’ this way. Tom West argues that the legitimacy of visualization as a first-order attack on problem solving is therefore being established after generations of quiet use by only some creators -- and some of the best at that. He claims that visualization is not only a legitimate way to solve problems, it is a superior way: the best minds have used it. West urges us to join the dyslexics of the world and use pictures instead of words. In the process we get fascinating glimpses of how other minds have worked -- minds that have changed the world.”

 

-- Alvy Ray Smith, PhD, electronic mail message of November 20, 1996. Dr. Smith was co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, former Director of Computer Graphics at Lucasfilm, Ltd., and Graphics Fellow, Advanced Technology, Microsoft Corporation. At Pixar, he formed the team that proceeded to create Tin Toy, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, Toy Story. At Microsoft, he designed the multimedia authoring infrastructure for Microsoft third party developers and content producers. While he was a Regent for the National Library of Medicine, he was instrumental in inaugurating the Visible Human Project. Dr. Smith has recently released a new book, A Biography of the Pixel, which provides a detailed history of how pixel-based images have come to dominate all aspects of the modern world. “The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel -- a particular packaging of bits -- conquered the world.” (From the publisher, MIT Press, August 2021.)

 

 

“In the Mind’s Eye. . .  [is] scholarly, encyclopedic and endlessly fascinating. . . . [It] is a great public service and one long overdue. Every family concerned about a learning problem--or even the usual problems of dealing with a teenage student--should have it in the house. . . . If I were dictator, every teacher everywhere would have to pass a test on it.”

 

-- Loren Pope, “The Learning Disabled of Today Will Be the Gifted of Tomorrow,” in Colleges That Change Lives(Penguin, New York, 2000 and 2006).

 

“. . . I entirely agree with [Dr. Doris Kelly] when she says that [In the Mind’s Eye] is ‘about 20 years ahead of current educational thinking.’ Many of us have spent long hours considering all the things that dyslexics are supposed to be weak at. What Tom West reminds us of is that we need also to consider dyslexics’ strengths. . . .   At present, so he implies, education is in the hands of those who possess all the traditional skills; and since, not surprisingly, they assume that others are like themselves, the needs of some very gifted thinkers whose brain organization is different are not being adequately met. I very much hope that both teachers and educational planners will read this book and take its message seriously.” 

 

-- T.R. Miles, Ph.D., in Dyslexia Contact, June 1993, pp. 14-15. The late Dr. Miles was Professor Emeritus, University College of North Wales, and Vice President of the British Dyslexia Association.

 

“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH conference were pivotal in the history of our project. We rewrote much of our material based on insights gained from your book. Previously, we had not realized fully how central the role of visualization was to what we were trying to do. We were already on the right path without really knowing it. . . . In our project CALCULUS&Mathematica, we have learned the effectiveness of teaching the concepts visually using graphic software prior to verbal explanations. Our students have gained a deeper understanding of the subject and they can recall and apply the material long afterward, which is rare for students taught with conventional methods.”

 

-- Dr. J. Jerry Uhl, Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, telephone conversation of September 29, 1993. Dr. Uhl was active in the National Science Foundation-sponsored reform of calculus teaching at the university level. With W. Davis and H. Porta, he was author of the interactive courseware, CALCULUS&Mathematica(Addison-Wesley, 1994), using high-level, general-purpose mathematics software along with graphic computers. Initially viewed as radical, the innovative approaches used in this courseware have been widely adopted and are now in use by many modern calculus courses and textbooks. 

 

“Thanks so much for sending the material. . . . There is a lot of overlap in points we have both been making for years. I have often argued in my public talks that the graduate education process that produces physicists is totally skewed to selecting those with analytic skills and rejecting those with visual or holistic skills. I have claimed that with the rise of scientific visualization as a new mode of scientific discovery, a new class of minds will arise as scientists. In my own life, my ‘guru’ in computational science was a dyslexic and he certainly saw the world in a different and much more effective manner than his colleagues. . . .”

 

-- Larry L. Smarr, Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Illinois, electronic mail message of August 6, 1994. With W.J. Kaufmann, Dr. Smarr is author of Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993. 

 

“There is a great deal in this book which is pertinent to the study of the highly able. The author points out that this century’s focus on what is normal, and pushing children towards those norms, may have obscured an understanding of the high degree of individual differences, masking many forms of giftedness which then may go undetected. He urges us to cultivate these awkward individuals for their unusual gifts to improve creativity in the sciences as well as the arts. West’s weave of case studies and ideas to promote his arguments is intriguing and convincing. If what he says is true, then the waste of high ability is very much worse than we might have thought. But using his reasoning, if we were to change our educational outlook to a more positive and humane one, then millions more children would be enabled to develop into creative, productive, and fulfilled adults.”

 

-- Review by Joan Freeman, European Journal for High Ability, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993. 

 

“Tom West argues convincingly that brains which learn differently may contribute a unique set of talents to the world. Although these brains may present a variety of educational challenges, this book stresses the importance of individual differences and biological variation for adaptation to future environmental challenges. We should consider the design of educational environments within this context.”

 

-- Gordon F. Sherman, Ph.D., former Director, Dyslexia Research Laboratory, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School; past President, the International Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail message of December 3, 1996. Head, Newgrange School and Educational Outreach Center, Princeton, NJ. 

 

“At last, here is a book that can be whole-heartedly and enthusiastically recommended to all our readers. Thoroughly researched, clearly and delightfully written, it says many of the important things about visual thinking that we have long been waiting to hear . . . . Arguably, it represents the most significant turning point in educational thought this century. Everyone with concern for the future of education in this country, and particularly those involved with the education of dyslexics, should read it -- now.” 

 

-- Susan Parkinson, editor, newsletter of The Arts Dyslexia Trust (United Kingdom), November 1992.

 

“If you accept [Thomas West’s] arguments, then the period of the domination of Western scientific thought by printed papers and mathematical formulae may be just another transitory period, perhaps akin to that of the introverted and argumentative world of medieval scholasticism before the new vision of the Renaissance and the practical empiricism of the Enlightenment.”

 

-- Lord Renwick, Chairman, European Informatics Market (EURIM), Vice-President, Past Chairman, The British Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail of October 30, 1996. 

 

“The original title is In the Mind’s Eye. The Japanese title Geniuses Who Hated Schoolis a wildly different translation. However, people who are considered geniuses may have great powers of visual thought. . . . There is a possible relationship between the great visual thinker and the poor reader or math student. . . .  Many visual thinkers have trouble adjusting to conventional education systems. This is the logic behind the two titles. . . . [The author] raises . . . an important question, asking us to look again at what are fundamental abilities in a time when computers can do the simple work in place of humans and to reconsider the educational system while keeping in mind the variety of human brains that exist.”

 

-- Review in Kagaku Asahi, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.

 

“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. In the Mind’s Eyeis just such a book. . . .   What is unique about West’s essay is that he weaves . . . disparate areas together to show that technological change is affecting what we value as intelligence.”

 

-- Roeper Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.

 

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APPENDIX C

 

Summary Slides, Basic Approach

Note: The presentation slides in talks provided by West are usually made up of images of people, places, books and other graphic material -- sometimes with just a few key words or phrases to be discussed by the speaker. However, occasional longer text slides, like those below, have been incorporated in recent years to emphasize certain concepts and points of view, especially when they are significantly different from what many in the audience might expect or believe.

Selected Text Slides Used in Talks by Thomas West

*****************

• Some want to teach mainly reading in order to bring dyslexics up to normal levels with “basic skills.” 

• But, instead, others want to study the dyslexic “super stars” to learn how they did it. Indeed,how similar they are to ourselves.

• Studying success, we hope to learn things that are useful to dyslexics and others, especially in a rapidly-changing global technological and economic context with massive data, high speed links, “deep learning” and AI.

• Basic skills have no market value. (Norbert Weiner, Cybernetics, 1948.)

***************

• Many dyslexics and strong visual thinkers seem poorly adapted to the old technologies of words and books, memorizing old knowledge. 

• But many seem perfectly adapted to the new technologies of complex information visualized in computer graphic images and simulations, creating new knowledge, seeing what others cannot see.

• Need to find ways to help students identify and employ their distinctive capabilities. Look to the highly successful. What to teach. How to teach.  

***************

Tell the Young Dyslexics

• Time is on your side. All the things you have had trouble with are becoming less and less important. All the things you are good at are becoming more and more important. (See EY business consultant reports.)

• Machines are now doing the reading and rapid recall and clerical tasks. Humans should not to do machine work. Rather, humans need to visualize, see the big picture, understand, recognize patterns, consider slowly and ponder what it all means, where to go and how to get there. (Versus narrow specialist PhD training -- as basic things change and then change again.)

**************

Samuel Torrey Orton, MD, in his 1925 paper on “Word Blindness”

• Iowa, Mobile Psychiatric Units (Orton almost became an engineer.)
• He requested to see those “failing in their school.” (142 were referred.)
• Patient MP, 16, “inability to read.” But Orton could see that he was very bright. 

• Orton wrote: “Stanford-Binet method [then a new test] . . . did not do justice to the boy’s mental equipment. . . . The test is inadequate to gauge . . . facile use of visual imagery of . . . complex type . . . good visualizing power . . . his replies were prompt and keen.” 

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Desire for New Tests and Measures

As I told a group of young dyslexic students: “We need to develop a new series of tests where the dyslexics will get the top score and the non-dyslexics will get the bottom score.” I had not been sure how many had been paying close attention. But to my surprise, my assertion brought spontaneous and enthusiastic applause. Their reaction tells us a lot about what they have been through – and how much they hunger for recognition of the things that they can do well.

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Often Nobel Prize winners seem to immediately understand what we are talking about when discussing visual thinking, visual technologies, dyslexia and the advantages of seeing things differently in 3D space. 

Many school psychologists and conventional educators do not. Often they are trained to design courses and tests that ignore or discourage seeing things differently. 

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Dyslexics are unlike non-dyslexics -- but they are also unlike each other. With highly varied traits, they are an essentially heterogeneous group, hard to measure and categorize. Nature’s way of creating brains that are really different. This is an advantage to the larger group over long periods of time. (Dr. Norman Geschwind) 

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• Stories: We should listen to individual stories in depth first, then collect data. As a good medical history tells you what to look for and what to measure and what data to collect. Anecdotes, and family histories, may lead to treasures of understanding.

• Sometimes we count the wrong things. Many dyslexic talents are invisible to conventional tests and measures. (So the resulting data may appear to be solid and scientific. But, instead, the hard data might actually confirm errors and misunderstandings -- wrongly seen as if they were facts, or may entirely miss the point.) Diversity is not a pathology.

• Many talk of a “scientific survey.” In old science: researchers want to generalize based on large populations. Small percentages do not matter. However, in new science: Small percents do matter. Individuals matter. Differences matter. Nano scales matter. There is sensitivity to initial conditions. The new focus of “precision medicine.” The power of the small.

• Of course, insights gained from anecdotes and family histories must always be tested properly using appropriate methods and measures (old or new). However, these sources should be seen as valuable in gaining insights not ordinarily available with conventional methods and sample selection, especially when the findings are opposite from those that would otherwise be expected. 

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Visualization seen as important in new ways of teaching mathematics

“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH [computer graphics] conference were pivotal in the history of our project. We rewrote much of our material based on insights gained from your book. Previously, we had not realized fully how central the role of visualization was to what we were trying to do. We were already on the right path without really knowing it. . . . In our project Calculus &Mathematica, we have learned the effectiveness of teaching the concepts visually using graphic software prior to verbal explanations. Our students have gained a deeper understanding of the subject and they can recall and apply the material long afterward, which is rare for students taught with conventional methods [using memorized mathematics].” 

–J. Jerry Uhl, PhD, Math Department Head, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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Dyslexia, visual thinking, thinking in 3D space and visual technologies: varied levels of interest observed in these ideas and concepts while giving talks over more than 25 years.

• Nobel Prize winners and high-level, creative scientists are often interested; conventionally trained educators and school psychologists are usually not interested.

• Groups like NASA Ames, the Max Planck Institutes, Oxford and Cambridge University researchers, NLM-NIH, the Dyslexia Association of Singapore, GCHQ in the UK and Hong Kong doctors are interested –these are practitioners, innovators, discoverers, practical users.

• Many conventional tests and measures do not capture these talents. Need new tests. How to recognize and develop high potential . . . How to show the way. . . For dyslexics, and for other different thinkers, for all of us -- to show the path, innovating for major problems, in a new digital age of AI . . .

• Concerning a really revolutionary discovery in science and technology. When you seek the origins of these discoveries, you should not be surprised to find a dyslexic. Because they are less full of previously memorized knowledge, and mostly think in pictures, often the dyslexics can observe closely with an open mind and can see what others cannot see. (Especially an advantage for Nobel Prize winners, of course -- because, they must, almost by definition, see things differently than conventional thinkers.)

 

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APPENDIX D

 

“Visualization Research Agenda Meeting,”

National Library of Medicine, February 15-16, 2000.

 

“Brief Quotations to Provide Background and Context”

Misconceptions Widespread --

“Concerning the question of whether technically creative people will ever be comfortable with artistically created people. I have seen two very different working environments, up close, that give two very different pictures. Pixar is an excellent example of how the two types can and do work harmoniously together -- with equal respect, dignity, salary, promotion opportunities, company ownership and mutual admiration. 

“My other experience is Microsoft, which, frankly, just does not ‘get it’ about artists. The technologically creative people here are awesome and Microsoft is the best run company I’ve ever seen, but the people here don’t respect artists in that deep way I just described at Pixar. They seem to believe the really good talents in the world are technical and if you can’t cut it then you do other things, like art. In other words, the culture here doesn’t, not yet anyway, welcome the other side. I’m trying to change this, but it isn’t so yet.” 

-- Alvy Ray Smith, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, interview, in ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, May 1999.

Recent trends, broad implications, now reversing talents -- 

“Until the 1960s, a student in an American engineering school was expected by his teachers to use his minds eye to examine things that engineers had designed, to look at them, listen to them, walk around them and thus develop an intuitive feel for the way the material world works and sometimes doesn’t work. 

“By the 1980s, engineering curricula had shifted to analytical [and mathematical] approaches, so that visual and other sensual knowledge of the world seemed less relevant. As faculties dropped drawing and shop practice from their curricula and [professors] deemed plant and factory visits unnecessary, working knowledge of the material world disappeared from faculty agendas and therefore from student agendas, and the nonverbal, tacit, and intuitive understanding essential to engineering design atrophied.” 

-- Eugene S. Ferguson, Engineering and the Minds Eye, the MIT press, 1992.

Special ability, fundamental in creative science, often ignored -- 

Spatial ability has been given only token attention as an important dimension of cognitive functioning. Research on the structure, identification, and development of spatial abilities has been conducted by a few researchers around the world [but] often ignored by the psychological and educational community. In addition, special ability has played only a modest role in educational assessment and instruction. 

-- Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth, Center for Talented Youth, Johns Hopkins University.

Professional implications, screening out talent -- 

“The engineering profession is being denied potentially innovative engineers by the present school system. As it is now structured, it screens out and discourages students who have abilities similar to those of the large number of presently practicing engineers, most of whom graduated before 1960. That innovative group, trained on vacuum tube technology, developed semiconductor electronics lasers, optical communications, satellite communications -- and put a man on the moon. I believe that a significant portion of these engineers are right brain dominant hand or compensated dyslexics. The type of students entering engineering school now is different from the student of the 1940s and 1950s. There is far more screening out today of right brain and moderately dyslexic students. Unfortunately too many companies will only hire graduates with high grades -- which is no indication of an engineer’s ingenuity. These potential employers should instead keep an open eye keep and open mind about right brain and dyslexic students, who could fill positions where their innovative and intuitive approaches to problems could be utilized.” 

-- Walter W. Fry, retired electrical engineer formerly with the Brookhaven National laboratory, “Speak Out.” IEEE Spectrum, December 1990. 

Changes in Screening Methods Over Time -- T. G. West

Note: Above observations possible in this time period because these innovative engineers were then alive. Some 30 years later, most of these engineers are gone. All the young engineers have been screened by standardized tests -- and have been trained to focus on mathematical approaches rather than “hands on” visual learning. So all are now able to memorize well and past modern tests. But perhaps few are able to do really major innovation, perhaps based on insights from innovative visual thinking. 

Similar might be said of the older doctors who attended the Markle Foundation reunion, where many told West of their own dyslexia or the dyslexia of near family members. See item 2 above. Need to provide more discussion on this speculation. 

Compare UK leadership prior to WWI where top government people prided themselves on knowing no science; they were all trained mainly in Greek and Latin literature and proud of reading major ancient texts in the original Greek every few years. (To obtain quotation on this from Bragg family. Also, similar to observation of Prof. John Stein, below, about highly innovative dyslexic Oxford dermatology professor, see below.)

Modern selection methods may effectively select out some of the most creative and individuals in various professional groups. So much depends upon what kinds of tests and section methods are used during certain historical periods.

Parallel efforts, Finding Talent at Oxford University––

Oxford University is currently mounting an effort to try to find ways to identify highly talented students who would not pass the usual screening mechanisms currently in place. One specific example given is a dyslexic dermatologist who has been a leader in his field, teaching at Oxford with many innovative papers and professional awards. Because of his weaknesses in test taking, however, he would not be admitted to Oxford today. They want to see how screening may be altered to change this situation. 

-- Professor John Stein, lecture in physiology, Oxford University, personal communication, London, June 1999.

A longer term expectation––

I have often argued in my public talks that the graduate education process that produces physicists is totally skewed to selecting those with analytical [and mathematical] skills and rejecting those with visual or holistic skills. I have claimed that with the rise of scientific visualization as a new mode of discovery, a new class of minds will arise as scientists. In my own life, my guru in computational science was dyslexic and he certainly saw the world in a different and much more effective manner then his own colleagues. 

-- Larry Smarr, National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Personal communication. [See his email.]

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APPENDIX E 

Acknowledgements

Most of the presentations, events and publications listed here result mainly from the vision, energy, advocacy and leadership of a small number of highly committed individuals. [Very preliminary here. More to come -- along with more on the main connections for each. Alpha order. -- TGW]

Susanna Cederquist -- Author of Swedish language book, Dyslexia plus Talent equals Truth; former consultant on dyslexia for Swedish Royal Family; founder of international group WHOLE, with monthly Zoom meetings for those interested in the talents of dyslexics.

William J. Dreyer, PhD -- Professor, Caltech, dyslexic molecular biologist; his innovative research led to Nobel Prize (for another scientist); with his dyslexic imagination he could easily assemble molecules in 3D space and tell his professors what experiments to do and what the results would be; started seven biotech companies; invited West to visit him at Caltech to hear his life story; see section in third book; his interviews are included in the Caltech oral history project (have paper transcript with his notations). 

Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide -- Authors of the book Dyslexic Advantage; other books, websites, newsletter, courses for teachers. 

Dr. Angela Fawcett and David Fawcett -- Professor, coauthor Dyslexia, Learning and the Brain, editor, UK journal “Dyslexia” and later, in Singapore, “Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences.”

Kate Griggs -- Co-founder with Richard Branson, Made By Dyslexia, UK.

Deborah Hewes -- Head of Publications, Dyslexia Association of Singapore.

Lord (Charles) Hindlip -- Chair of Christie’s Auction House, London; Chair of Arts Dyslexia Trust for 5 years; provided Introduction for handmade large format book Art Workspublished by the ADT to raise funds for the charity. (Second Introduction for this book provided by T.G.West.)

John R. (Jack) Horner -- Dinosaur researcher, Spielberg film consultant, Bozeman, Montana -- Two joint conference talks with West; two visits to Montana museum and digs; West interview of Horner filmed by Japanese film crew NHK, personal, never broadcast; to be available in West archive; Horner explains why he teaches his 19 graduate students to “think like a dyslexic” because dyslexics “have never been in the box.” His dyslexic grad student made discovery of blood vessels inside fossil bone more than 60 million years old; started molecular level research approach, never thought possible before.

Donald A. B. Lindberg, MD. Former Director of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. (See Appendix A.)

Adrianne Noe, PhD. -- Director, National Museum of Health and Medicine; organized in September 2007, museum display and panel of speakers for dedication of device designed by William J. Dreyer, PhD, of Caltech -- the first gas-phase automated protein sequencer, patented in 1977. 

Susan Parkinson -- Founder, the Arts Dyslexia Trust, arranged for many talks for art and scientific groups in the UK; Mall Galleries, London, May 1994; Crypt, St. Martin in the Fields, London. 

Lord (Harry) Renwick -- Long-term advocate for dyslexics in House of Lords; Vice President, British Dyslexia Association. Arranged several conferences concerning dyslexia and business. 

Rod Nicholson -- Professor, Edge Hill University, coauthor, Dyslexia, Learning and the Brain, author, Positive Dyslexia.

Marc I. Rowe, MD -- Dyslexic pediatric surgeon, top award, Ladd Metal. His story included in later editions of In the Mind’s Eye. 

Lee Siang -- CEO, Dyslexia Association of Singapore. 

John Stein, MD -- Professor, Oxford University, Dyslexia Trust.

Patience Bragg Thomson -- Publisher, teacher, school head; scientific family with many dyslexics, many visual thinkers and four Nobel Prize winners. 

Jo and Richard Todd -- Key 4 Learning. Consultants, GCHQ, UK Government; helped to arrange the first “Diversity Day” at GCHQ.