Studies of visual communication suggest that human society is transitioning from a verbally based culture, with an emphasis on texts and communication by words, to a visual culture where images share equal importance with words, or combine with words for a more powerful message. Visual literacy -- the ability to read, understand and evaluate signs, graphics and photographs -- takes on increasing importance in a visual culture, and understanding how visual communication works is the goal of research in a variety of interrelated fields.
The syntactic approach to visual communication draws from the fields of linguistics and semiotics, the study of signs and symbols. This approach states that parts of a visual image are "read" by the viewer in a particular pattern, such as sentences are read in the verbal culture. Although images themselves do not have a language, proponents of this approach claim that the parts of an image, when read in a sequence, are interpreted as language in the human mind.
The psychological approach to visual communication draws from studies of human cognition and the processes by which information from words, pictures or both is received and understood. This approach emphasizes the physiological and cognitive aspects of processing information from images and graphics, as well as the societal and cultural implications of visual images.
The gestalt approach to visual communication centers on the concept that the brain operates in a holistic way, gathering information and processing it into a single impression. This approach states that humans see the parts of an image in terms of light and dark, edge and shape, and the brain forms this into a whole image to which it assigns a meaning.