Memory Mastery: How to Improve Memory Blazingly Fast! The Secrets to Learning Faster, Gaining More Clarity, Easily Recalling Details & Significantly Increasing Your Memory Capacity by Walter E. Samuelson

Author:Walter E. Samuelson [Samuelson, Walter E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-24T18:30:00+00:00

Visual Memory Aids

As a student, you probably noticed that many textbooks use funny cartoon type drawings to illustrate points occasionally. The authors probably did not do this just to bring a little levity to the subject at hand; they did it because information that is presented with visual aids is easier to remember than information that is just presented through text or speech alone.

I can recall a relatively unimportant lesson from a psychology class I took over twenty years ago, thanks to a simple cartoon the instructor showed on an overhead projector. It showed some office workers commenting on two co-workers with ulcers. One was a quiet, mild mannered man, and the caption showed the office workers saying, “No wonder he has ulcers. He keeps it all inside.” The other was an angry man with a volatile temper. The caption showed the office workers saying, “No wonder he has ulcers. He can't control his anger.”

This all related to a brief diversion on the part of the instructor – probably less than thirty seconds – on how people without formal psychology training often have conflicting ideas about human psychology without even realizing it. Twenty years later, I cannot remember much of what he spent many hours discussing in the classroom, but thanks to that cartoon, I can remember that lesson with ease.

Another good example of this effect can be found on computers or other hand-held devices, like tablets or smart phones. The applications on it supplement their menus with images that illustrate the commands the applications are supposed to carry out. For instance, a “save” command may be illustrated by a little arrow pointing to a disc, or a “summarize” command might be accompanied by a small icon of the mathematical symbol for summarizing a series of numbers. This is not just because images attract our eye more quickly. It is because it makes it easier to remember where to find that menu item.

Many studies have shown that we remember images better than what we have read or heard. In fact, some studies have shown that we can usually only recall about 10 percent of what we hear and 20 percent of what we read, but around 80 percent of what we see.

In addition, when we combine multiple methods of presenting information, we remember even better. One study showed that participants at business meetings remember information that is presented visually and orally six times better than information is just presented orally, with no visual aids.

The brain works a bit like a relational database, where information is retrieved by being associated with smaller bits of information called keys. The more keys a memory is related to, the easier it is to retrieve a memory. This is why visual aids can help us recall oral and written information more easily: because they associate more keys – in this case, visual keys – with the information we need to retain. Some types of visual memory aids can also make the relationship between data apparent,

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