Video transcript –
Your brain can make sense of images in as few as 13 milliseconds. And like the saying goes, “a picture paints a thousand words.”
In one study, university students were asked to listen to statements that were completely new to them. Half of the participants were instructed to rate how easy the statements were to pronounce – which forced them to focus on the auditory element. The other half rated how easy it was to form a mental image of the statement – which forced them to focus on images. The students then answered a series of questions about the statements. Results showed that the group prompted to visualize the statements answered the questions two times more accurately than the group that focused on the auditory information.
So it seems that learning words is easier when you use an image. Try remembering these words: trees, hammock, cat, balloon. They are easily forgotten, but an image like this makes them easy to remember. And the more bizarre, or distinct the image you use, the more likely you are to recall it.
Always include images when you study, you can remember information more quickly and more accurately this way.
Cuevas, J., & Dawson, B. L. (2017). A test of two alternative cognitive processing models: Learning styles and dual coding. Theory and Research in Education, 1-21.