R: Toward a theory of qualitative visual reasoning in microanatomy

Much can be learned about the use of visual information in cognition through the study of visual symbol systems – systems in which a visual structural domain is used to provide information about a target domain (e.g., telescopes used to learn about astronomy). We discuss a recent study that examined a real world task, microscope slide interpretation, in a complex scientific domain, histology. Histology is the microanatomy of biological tissue and consistently depends on the use of microscopes. This investigation demonstrated that identification of histological structures in a microscope is an extremely challenging task with large individual differences. It is remarkable for the degree to which it forces an integration of visual knowledge, generic (anatomical) knowledge, an