The superior effect of images on memorization

Abstract

This study observed that the ability to recall information that is received through visualization of associative images is considerably superior to the ability to recall informa- tion received in an abstract format, such as just words and texts. The same conceptual content, in two different formats, was presented to two groups of people, one format for each group. The presentation of both formats observed the same length of time, however, for the members of one of the groups, the presentation demonstrated images associated with the concepts and for the members of the second group, the presentation was made only on the conceptual text, without images. After the individual presentation to each member, the subject was asked to evoke the content acquired at four different times, in order to verify the retention of information in memory. The first recall was requested immediately at the presentation, the second recall one hour later, the third 24 hours later and the fourth recall was done after seven days. The results showed that, regardless of age, gender, professional occupation and even education, subjects who received the presentation with images achieved 89% higher performance in memorization, compared to subjects who received the presentation based only on text.