Virtual Reality - Real Visuality: Virtual, Visual, Veridical (Visual Learning)

Hardcover, 197 pages, NOT ex-library. Minor handling wear only; a large barcode sticker on the back. Book is clean and bright throughout, with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Issued without a dust jacket. -- This collection of essays embarks on a multifaceted investigation into the essence of visuality and its intricate relationship with reality in a digitally saturated age. The volume begins by deconstructing the foundations of expression, exploring the blurred lines between literal and figurative meaning through the lens of cognitive linguistics and Conceptual Metaphor Theory. This linguistic groundwork extends into an analysis of a "virtual rhetoric," a mode of persuasion that predates modern technology, and examines the capacity for images themselves to function as potent arguments, as seen in nature conservancy campaigns. The inquiry then pivots to the philosophical realm, tackling the concept of pictorial truth and arguing that metaphors can express essential, literally true aspects of reality. This section defends common-sense realism against relativism by analyzing pictorial representation and explores how iconographic analysis of cross-cultural artifacts - such as children's drawings from Europe and Japan - can reveal differing cultural mentalities. From theory, the book moves to practice, presenting diagrams not merely as illustrative objects but as scientific instruments integral to reasoning and discovery. This practical focus continues into educational science, addressing the shift toward Open Content Development and analyzing how digital environments and new media systems fundamentally affect the teaching process. A significant portion of the work is dedicated to the social and digital spheres, presenting empirical research on how image-centric behaviors, specifically the use of selfies, are associated with the quality of romantic relationships. It charts the development of a unique form of literacy emerging from American dating apps and dissects the mechanisms of both verbal and visual aggression in the context of online trolling. The volume culminates with a profound examination of ultimate representations, delving into the spectacular and persuasive rhetoric of the apocalyptic and its combination of the real and the uncanny. It concludes by probing the theological and philosophical dimensions of belief, asking what it means to place trust in images as the ultimate reality and whether a critical faith in pictures requires a truth that exists beyond them.…