memory – Cognition in Class

April 13, 2025April 13, 2025

Visual Imagery: Because College Doesn’t Come with Directions

By Willie Cox

Introduction:

The beginning weeks of college can be a very stressful and overwhelming time. To cope with this our mind uses several strategies that we are not aware of. Visual imagery is just one of these. Visual imagery involves picturing things in your mind even if you are not looking directly at them (4). This can involve seeing something from the past or present. We have the ability to represent spatial patterns from memory (4). Simply put, if you experience visual images when answering questions, you are experiencing visual imagery. For example, throughout our entire collegiate career and life for that matter, but even more so in the first few weeks of our college experience, our mind is using the process of visual imagery to process the emotional and mental challenges that come with starting college. The first few weeks of college can be full of chaos as we meet multiple new people, attend new classes, try to remember every last thing on the syllabi, and try to navigate living on our own for the first time. Being able to create mental images such as a schedule that is jam packed allows us to associate those experiences with just a quick picture.

Visual Imagery in Action

Imagine you are in your first week of college and are experiencing all kinds of emotions. Some of which might be excitement, anxiousness, or even a sense of feeling overwhelmed or homesick. This exact scenario can be represented through the visual imagery process by using mental images to describe how the feelings of being overwhelmed/anxious might also look like entering a classroom where it appears all of the seats have been filled, there are lots of loud voices, and you still have yet to find a seat. The visual imagery process allows us to create mental images and make associations to those images.

Furthermore, visualizing the route one takes to get to class before actually leaving to go to class is made possible through visual imagery. Being able to mentally recall previous experiences such as saying farewell to your hometown friends and family allow us the opportunity to reflect on those experiences and how we felt during them through the process of visual imagery. The process of visual imagery is how we make sense of experiences. Visual imagery gives us the opportunity to learn specific associations (3). Visual imagery allows us to make connections and improves our memory retention.

Additionally, visual imagery is said to enhance reading comprehension ability (5). Reading comprehension is a much-needed skill in college. One’s ability to comprehend what they read will have a huge impact on what information is retained. A lot of college quizzes and exams rely on comprehension of material. This skill can be difficult for many but with the use of visual imagery can be made much more manageable. Associating images with learned information can ensure one will have an easier time recalling information in the future.

Visual Imagery and Cognitive Psychology

Visual imagery involves our memory. Visual imagery can improve memory by associating items, visualizing, and organizing using the method of loci (2). Loci is a memory technique the brain uses to associate items to be remembered with specific locations in a particular space. Effectively storing and recalling information is made possible through visual imagery. When we are overwhelmed or anxious visual imagery helps us to connect those experiences and cope with them by finding a meaning. The process involves our ability to think, remember, and problem-solve. According to Wilhem Wundt in Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience, visuals have been proven to be an effective way to study, learn, and retain information (2). Visuals provide support for learning (1). Visual imagery is just one of the many ways our mind takes information, stores it, and uses it at other moments in time. Studying images is considered to be a way of also studying thinking. Visual imagery also relates to another cognitive processes called perception (2). Perception is how we interpret and make sense of everything through our senses. Visual imagery and perception are connected as they share similar mechanism in the visual cortex (2). The visual cortex is the part of the brain that processes visual information.

Conclusion:

So next time you find yourself stressing out over an exam or assignment that you decided to wait until last minute to study or begin, remember the visual imagery process and how it helps you to navigate through those tough experiences. Visualizing these experiences helps us to reflect, make connections, and make sense of the experience itself. Not to mention, we can turn the stressful situations into opportunities for growth. How we choose to handle stressful situations is what matters. Moreover, visual imagery provides ways for us to cope, manage emotions, and make the college experience more tolerable and meaningful. Having the necessary tools to develop academically and personally are what it is all about.

References

Ekerim, M. G., & Yilmaz, M. B. (2022). The importance and meaningfulness of visuals: The situation for university students. Pegem Journal of Education and Instruction, 12(1), 39–47. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1329831.pdf
Goldstein, B. E. (2008). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Hollenberg, C. K. (1970). Functions of visual imagery in the learning and concept formation of children. Child Development, 41(4), 1003–1015. https://doi.org/10.2307/1127328
Mulligan, J., Prescott, A., & Mitchelmore, M. (2003). Taking a closer look at young students’ visual imagery. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, 8(4), 23–27. https://research.ebsco.com/c/l3rxun/viewer/pdf/qkcdpjnsgr
Siagian, S. W., & Katemba, C. V. (2016). Comparative study between think aloud and visual imagery in enhancing students’ reading comprehension. Acuity: Journal of English Language Pedagogy, Literature and Culture, 1(2), 36–51. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1388083.pdf

April 28, 2024May 1, 2024

Dual Coding for Learning new Language

By Will Godinez

The use of Dual Coding in essence is using imagery and labeling it with a word which in turn helps you remember the word or the image one sees for the first time, and it should turn into a long-term memory. But how can we use dual coding in our freshman year in college, well depending where you go you may end up taking a class of learning a new language for extracurricular, something fun you may have a trip in mind to go to and you want to learn the language before you head out to that specific country in case the locals or the signs don’t have the language you speak. Would be awful if you get stranded in a country without knowing the language, and what would you do if your phone dies google translate won’t be translating nothing if you can’t speak at least a broken version of the country’s native language. But how does this correlate with learning a language in class or even on your own time.

April 28, 2024May 1, 2024

Have trouble remembering? Maybe it’s in the way you process!

By Sarah Kimbro

What goes into remembering memories?

For memories, learning how to process and organize them is great for when we want to do well at work, at school, or even with relationships. When it comes to processing your memories, it starts with your working memory, and depending on how you memorize and use your working memory affects what then becomes stored. To completely utilize the working memory, you have to use it to its full capacity, which also includes using the best method to encode the things in working memory so that they are able to be processed into your long-term memory store. One of the best methods to use is chunking, where you ‘chunk’ the things that are similar that you want to remember together. There are about four chunks that can go into working memory before you start to forget things (1) and so then comes the encoding to process those memories from working memory into your long-term memory.

April 28, 2024May 1, 2024

Survival of the Studious

By Makayla Rosenbery

Survival value (also known as adaptive value and connection to survival processing) is understanding memory and how memory is used to survive which leads to survival processing that encodes items into our memory(1)! Survival value leads to enhanced memory by relating words to situations that others have not experienced (the apocalypse!!!) This works because when we relate words to our survival, we are linking to something meaningful that will stick in our minds(2). In cognitive psychology, survival value refers to the adaptive benefit of certain cognitive processes or behaviors that assist one’s survival.

April 28, 2024May 1, 2024

Study Like a Rockstar: Mastering Maintenance Rehearsal for Academic Success

By Ellory Wahlfeld

Are you cramming for exams? Do you drown in flashcards? There’s a science-backed lifeline that could change the way you hit the books. It’s called maintenance rehearsal, not your average study hack. It’s a brain-tuning, memory-maxing method that could turn your study woes into wins.

April 27, 2024May 1, 2024

Conquer Your Mind: Understanding Interference in Learning

By Haley Cutting

Introduction

Trying to learn new information while having to remember old information is hard, especially the thought of coming in as a first-year college student. The thought of trying to learn multiple classes and courses at once at a high level can be stressful, especially coming out of high school. The class schedule in college is confusing within itself. Trying to figure out how you will study for your psychology of learning exam on Monday and your cognitive psychology exam, also on Monday. When you go in to take your cognitive psychology exam, you completely forget everything you studied from earlier chapters, but can only remember everything from recent chapters. This is what is called retroactive interference (RI). This process occurs when learning a new task that then impairs the previously learned task (1). As you continue throughout the exam, you remember stuff from chapters from the start of the year. As you start remembering those earlier chapters, you cannot seem to remember anything from the chapters you just learned! This is what is called proactive interference (PI). This process occurs when the old task you learned impairs the ability to learn or remember the new task (1). There are some ways to stop these interferences from occurring for you little newcomers. To stop these from happening you need to fully understand which interference is which and what they fully mean. Here is a little acronym trick for you, Proactive = Old, Retroactive = New (“P.O.R.N”).

April 27, 2024May 1, 2024

The Biggest Question for College Students: How do I Study?

By Nataly Rodriguez

As an incoming freshman studying is the one skill, I hoped you learned in high school but if not here is an idea of how to study!

Use the recency effect! Now you may be wondering what exactly that is but let me explain slowly. The recency effect is the tendency to remember most recently presented items (1). Now an example of this is if you are trying to remember a list of items it is most likely you remember the items you last studied (1). Now using this effect can help move items in short- term memory to a longer-term memory. You would have to constantly revisit the items the same way you learned them.

April 26, 2024May 1, 2024

Using Elaboration as a Cognitive Approach for Helpful Studying

By Emma Sandlin

It is quite difficult to start college. There are several issues that must be resolved, the most important of which being how to comprehend and absorb the content in the best possible way. One of the many worries that accompany beginning college is learning how to use elaboration when studying new material. According to cognitive psychologists, elaboration is a very useful technique for enhancing learning and memory retention (1). Elaboration is the process of bringing new information to life by connecting it to what has already been learned or by creating meaningful connections. Students can improve their comprehension and retain more information by using the elaborative encoding method. Study skills mastery is essential to achieving academic brilliance. Elaboration is shown to be an effective tactic for boosting understanding, fortifying memory retention, and encouraging in-depth learning (1). Elaboration makes study sessions more lively by enticing students to actively interact with the content, draw connections, and develop ideas (2). Students that integrate elaborative processing into their study regimens open the door to an abundance of knowledge that is just waiting to be discovered and comprend (3).

April 26, 2024May 1, 2024

Studying Blows!! Try Chunking it!

By Macey Whisker

As a college student, you will be doing a LOT of studying! Twelve to sixteen credit hours a semester is an intense workload, so let’s make it a bit lighter. Throw your previous study tools out the window, this is not high school anymore! If you are anything like me, your parents or guardians probably had you remember their phone number so you could contact them from anywhere, anytime, if there was an emergency. Some parents added a little tune or jingle to the memorization process to make it easier to recall, and some assigned the chunked numbers a specific value or meaning, which is what chunking is (1)! Splitting up a specific group or list of information into chunks then assigning those chunks a title or value makes the details not just easier to remember, but able to be retained for longer periods of time!

April 26, 2024May 1, 2024

Studying is a Waste of Time: There’s a Better Way to Get the Grade You Want

By Brody Forsythe

The transformation of becoming a college freshman from a high school senior is a different transition for everyone. Depending on the individual’s experience, goals and interests, it can either be a seamless transition or one with many holes and lots of exposed seams. When it comes to academics, it can be an extremely difficult transition if one is trying to incorporate old study habits that were previously effective in high school. There are numerous students out there that will tell you about their humbling experience with their very first college exam, and I can include myself in that category. I can remember studying for my first chemistry exam thinking about how easy it was going to be to get an “A” on it, and when it came down to taking the test, not a single concept could be retrieved from my mind to help me pass the test. All I could remember was how confident I felt looking over the notes I previously written down, and looking at the practice problems we did in class months prior to the exam and thinking, “Yeah, I’ve got this!”. I was just following my old high school studying procedure and little did I know my whole world about studying was in for a rude awakening.