Vision & Education: Using pictures instead of text increases learning.
“ Words are only postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap.”
George Bernard Shaw
When USA Today was first published on September 15, 1982, some predicted it would never work. Within four years, USA Today had the second highest readership of any newspaper in the country, and within 10 years, it was number one. Its theory is less text plus more pictures equal increased sales.
Why? Pictures are a more efficient delivery mechanism of information than text. Pictorial information is initially more attractive to consumers, in part because it takes less effort to comprehend, a more efficient way to get information to a neuron.
All visual information ends up in the visual cortex within the occipital lobe. Place your hand on the back of your head; your hand is now a quarter of an inch away from the visual cortex. The visual cortex is extremely specialized, some neurons responding only to certain pieces of information such as diagonal lines, others only to specific diagonal lines tilted at 40 degrees but not at 45 degrees. Some neurons process only the color in a visual signal, others only edges, and others only motion.
In his book Brain Rules, John Medina writes that “vision resources in the cortical area of the brain take up about half of everything you do and that visual perception doesn’t assist in the perception of our world; it dominates the perception of our world.
Pictorial superiority effect or PSE means the more visual the input becomes, the more likely it is to be recognized and recalled. Some of the research is astounding. John Medina reports in his book Brain Rules that “people could remember 2,500 pictures with at least 90% accuracy several days post-exposure, even though subjects saw each picture for about 10 seconds.” Moreover, accuracy rates were appropriately 63% one year later.
Why is text so inefficient?
Why is text so inefficient? The brain sees words as a lot of little pictures. We analyze each feature in a word before moving on to the next word. Medina writes that, “data clearly shows that a word is unreadable unless the brain can separately identify simple features in the letter.” Our cortex does not recognize words; it recognizes pictures. Text slows a person down because it creates a roadblock, which affects reading fluency. To our brains, words are just many little pictures created and strung together.
In preparing instruction, teachers should be mindful of the pictorial superiority effect and try to use pictures as much as possible in your presentations and instruction.
Why? Because research shows that recall doubles when a picture is added as compared to when information is presented using just text. Hear a piece of information, and 3 days later you will remember 10% of it. Add a picture, and you will remember 65%.
Three days after instruction, the average a person will remember 10% of the orally presented information, 35% if the material was presented only visually, and 65% if information was presented both orally and visually.
John Medina explains the importance of vision.
The Jennifer Aniston's neuron
Educators must remember that each student’s brain is wired differently and a child’s environment causes permanent physical changes in our brains.
The Jennifer Aniston's neuron is an example of the specificity of neurons and serves as an example that no two brains are wired exactly the same including identical twins.
John Medina relates a story of a conscious man lying in surgery with his brain partially exposed. He is feeling no pain because the brain has no pain neurons. The reason for surgery is life-threatening epilepsy.
Suddenly, a surgeon shows the patient a picture of Jennifer Aniston and a neuron in his brain fired rapidly and intensely. The neuron responded to 7 photos of Aniston, while ignoring the 80 other images of everything else. Furthermore, the neuron fired to all images of Aniston except the one where she appeared with Brad Pitt.
Photos and drawings of Halle Berry, and even her written name activated another neuron. Although this neuron responded to a picture of Halle Berry dressed in her Catwomen costume, it did not respond to the photo of other women in a Catwomen costume. Other neurons responded to Julia Roberts, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Bill Clinton, or even a famous building like the Sydney Opera House.
By using this example, Medina illustrates the principle that all brains are wired differently because “our brains are so sensitive to external inputs that their physical wiring depends upon the culture in which they find themselves.” In other words, each interaction with our environment that our brains experience changes the physical structure of our brain forever. He refers to this concept as “experience-dependent wiring.”
Even identical twins’ brains that watch the same movie are wired differently. He goes on to explain that, “even though the differences may seem subtle, the two brains are creating different memories of the same movie” because “learning results in physical changes in the brain, and these changes are unique to the individual.”
Naturally, this interesting example has educational implications. This example is called experience dependent wiring, that is the brain’s wiring is determined by its experiences. Medina explains that, “we can divide the world’s brains into those who know of Jennifer Aniston or Halle Berry and those who don’t. The brains of those who do are not wired the same way as those who don’t.” This means that our brains are so sensitive to external inputs that their physical wiring depends upon the culture in which they find themselves.
Given this data, does it make sense to have school systems expect every brain to learn like every other? The data offers powerful implications for how we should teach kids. Medina summarizes the above information in the following manner:
a. What you do in life and learn in life physically changes what your brain looks like-it literally rewires it.
b. The various regions of the brain develop at different times in different people.
c. No two people’s brains store the same information in the same way in the same place.
In summary, vision trumps all senses, it’s our most dominant sense, and human vision is wired to notice differences, patterns, and color. We don’t see with our eyes, we see with our brains.
Why is it important for educators to know the importance of how vision shapes learning and that pictures beats text. In the words of John Medina; “If you are in education, you in the business of brain development and you need to know how the brain works.”
Finally, a question. What do you remember about the front page of the USA Today?