On the Persuasiveness of Visual Arguments in Mathematics

Two experiments are reported which investigate the factors that influence how persuaded mathematicians are by visual arguments. We demonstrate that if a visual argument is accompanied by a passage of text which describes the image, both research-active mathematicians and successful undergraduate mathematics students perceive it to be significantly more persuasive than if no text is given. We suggest that mathematicians’ epistemological concerns about supporting a claim using visual images are less prominent when the image is described in words. Finally we suggest that empirical studies can make a useful contribution to our understanding of mathematical practice.

• Publication year

  2009

• Venue

  Foundations of Science

• Publication date

  Unknown publication date

• Fields of study

  Mathematics, Sociology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1007/S10699-008-9149-4
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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