New York Times Part Two: Improve Your Memory with Visuals!

Why Visuals Improve Your Memory

This is part two of Tim Hererra’s New York Times article: “A SIMPLE WAY TO BETTER REMEMBER THINGS: DRAW A PICTURE.”By Tim Herrera Jan. 6, 2019

In that 2016 paper, they wrote that the act of drawing things out encourages “a seamless integration of semantic, visual and motor aspects of a memory trace.” Further, Dr. Wammes said, picturing something then physically drawing it forces us to focus on the defining aspects of an object — say, the differences between a tiger and a lion — which allows us to better recall it.

“Any time you add an additional form of processing to your learning, you’re going to get a benefit over and above what’s in the nature of the stimulus,” he said. “If you’re reading a list of things and trying to remember them, it’s going to be a lot more difficult than if you actively engage with each item on the list.”

It gets even better: As our memory naturally declines as we get older, the benefits of drawing things out can help us better retain new information.

In a study published this year from Ms. Meade, Dr.Fernandes and Dr. Wammes, the recall of younger adults was compared with older adults in a series of tests. Similar to the 2016 study, subjects were asked to draw, write out and list characteristics of a series of nouns. Younger adults outperformed older adults when it came to recall, but “drawing reduced age-related differences.”

In other words, drawing out the things we want to remember can be a powerful technique to combat our natural declines in memory, better even than repeatedly writing them down or listing characteristics and descriptors.

If this sounds familiar, the idea of drawing things is in somewhat in the same realm as the concept of a “memory palace.” To, ahem, refresh your memory: This is a technique that “involves associating the ideas or objects to be memorized with memorable scenes imagined to be at well-known locations, like one’s house or along a familiar walking route,” The Times wrote in 2016.

Now let’s return to what I asked you to do at the beginning of this article. Without looking, can you recall the word I asked you to draw?

Let me guess: You’re picturing it in your mind’s eye right now. (And maybe getting a little hungry for a snack.)