“We distinguish diagrammatic from sentential paper-and-pencil representations of information by developing alternative models of information-processing systems that are informationally equivalent and that can be characterized as sentential or diagrammatic. Sentential representations are sequential, like the propositions in a text. Diagrammatic representations are indexed by location in a plane. Diagrammatic representations also typically display information that is only implicit in sentential representations and that therefore has to be computed, sometimes at great cost, to make it explicit for use. We then contrast the computational efficiency of these representations for solving several. illustrative problems in mathematics and physics.”

Source: 1980s and later, "Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words," (1987), p. 65

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Herbert A. Simon58

American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and p… 1916–2001

David Marr (1945–1980) British neuroscientist and psychologist

Source: Representation and recognition of the spatial organization of three-dimensional shapes, 1978, p. 274

“A representation is a formal system for making explicit certain entities or types of information, together with a specification of how the system does this. And I shall call the result of using a representation to describe a given entity a description of the entity in that representation.”

David Marr (1945–1980) British neuroscientist and psychologist

Representation and recognition of the spatial organization of three-dimensional shapes, 1978

“To a great mind, nothing is little,' remarked Holmes, sententiously.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“In view of the dramatic effects that alternative representations may produce on search and recognition processes, it may seem surprising that the differential effects on inference appear less strong. Inference is largely independent of representation if the information content of the two sets of inference rules [one operating on diagrams and the other operating on verbal statements] is equivalent—i. e. the two sets are isomorphs as they are in our examples”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1980s and later, "Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words," (1987), p. 71, as cited in: Bauer, Malcolm I., and Philip N. Johnson-Laird. " How diagrams can improve reasoning http://mentalmodels.princeton.edu/papers/1993diags%26reasoning.pdf." Psychological Science 4.6 (1993): 372-378.