The Importance Of Visual Aids For Memory

Common visual aids include charts and posters, slides and videos, overhead and computer projections. The Sun Sentinel reports that visual aids may help make legal issues simpler, because visual graphics can help engage the jury, judge and others by helping to simplify and clarify the arguments during a case trial. The Sentinel's article suggests that you may retain more information when you experience it in video and audio presentations.

Storage

According to information published on Muskingum University's website, visual aids can help you organize information in a way that enhances your memory's encoding mechanisms. Encoding is the process that your memory uses to transform information into a form that your memory can store. Computers encode information similarly by transferring data into binary code. Your memory transforms information into meaningful forms like associating incoming information with existing memories, images or sounds. Encoding information allows your memory to store new information. Storage is like the process that occurs when a computer writes the binary code the corresponds with saving a new file on the computer.

Retrieval

Visual aids may help enhance your memory's retrieval systems. Retrieval occurs when your memory brings information out of storage and reverses processes that occurred during encoding. Reversing the encoding returns the information to a form that is similar to what was stored. Visual aids such as color-coding information can provide a schema that enhances your memory's retrieval systems. An instructor may use visual aids while lecturing to students. Retrieval occurs in a student's memory on exam day, when he encounters a question or problem that requires knowledge of information from the lecture.

Sensory Memory

Sensory memory is one of your memory's storage capabilities. Sensory memory only lasts a few seconds and refers to any information that you encounter through your senses such as information that you see with your eyes when using visual aids. According to a paper published in the "Proceedings of the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology," your sensory memory perceives information that is subsequently processed by your working or "short-term" memory, and visual aids stimulate your sensory memory.

Working Memory

You generally use your working or short-term memory when you are conscious of something that you experience through your senses. Your senses pick up a lot of information that you do not pay attention to, and your working memory helps you tend to remember information that is relevant. Working memory lasts approximately 30 seconds and may store a maximum of approximately five to nine bits of information at a time. Cognitive overload occurs when you encounter more than five to nine bits of information. Visual aids may stimulate sensory memory in a way that enhances or reduces the cognitive load on your working memory.

Long-Term Memory and Concept Maps

Long-term memory builds permanent mental images and schema or networks of information about things that you think about. Concept maps represent mental schema by showing the relationships among a set of several concepts or ideas that are interconnected. Concept maps may present single words that are enclosed in individual boxes and connected to other concepts or ideas by lines or arrows. Concept maps may help reduce cognitive load and help you store information in long-term memory, because these maps allow you to visualize mental schemas that parallel your long-term memory storage.