Semiotic, cognition and visual communication: the basical signs which build the visible.

Abstract

The knowledge we have of the world around us relies on the meaning we ascribe to differentiated parts of it; all that is not meaningful remains out of the reach of knowledge. Certain parts of our environment are recognized as visually organized entities. Recognizing a visual organization implies a semiotic operation by which we ascribe something with some kind of meaning, order or relationship among its parts. Now, as the knowledge of any organization is given starting from some type of representation of it, it will depend on the character of that representation whether the organization in question belongs to the visual domain or not.

The concept of representation should be understood in a broad sense, not merely as a graphic outcome but as any kind of model or system of signs that mediates with the object of knowledge. Thus, visual communication operates through messages that are channeled in visual representations. This article analyzes the types of elementary signs that take part in the visual semiosis.