The Effects of Visual Imagery
We always wonder what the effects of visual imagery are. However, there are multiple effects. According to A Promise & McNair Scholars Undergraduate Journal, it states that, “We aimed to clarify whether visual mental imagery improves memory by forming both visual and verbal memory traces (dual coding) or by processing visually-imagined stimuli more deeply and effortfully (depth of processing) (A Promise & McNair Scholars Undergraduate Journal, 2025).”
The way that Visual Imagery works is that cognitive psychologists studied various strategies to understand the enhancement of memory and learning. Researchers began to examine how mental imagery improves memory in the brain. The research involves practical applications in education and healthcare, benefiting students in memorizing course material.
The research dug deep into the material. According to A Promise & McNair Scholars Undergraduate Journal, it states that, “McCauley et al. (1996) investigated how visual mental imagery, used as an elaborative study task, affected performance on ‘implicit and explicit tests of memory in both young and old adults.’ Participants studied a wordlist and completed the word-stems based on the previously studied words, and in the implicit condition, participants were told this was a filler task, and they should write the first word that came to mind (A Promise & McNair Scholars Undergraduate Journal, 2025).”
The tests were being studied for the participants’ mental imagery. It’s the experiment of studying words, and the results were fully dissociated.
Ways to Improve Your Memory
The ways to improve memory are what was said above, which is about the brain receiving and/or recalling information after reading. However, the two systems (verbal and imagery), are in two different processes. The verbal process in order is: words spark other words. The imagery system uses mental images to represent knowledge.
With Dual Coding can be seen with different information. I think that it depends on the information you are given and how it is being shown. According to NeuroLaunch, it states, “The real magic of dual coding lies in how these two systems interact and support each other. It’s not just about having two separate channels for information; it’s about how they work together to create a richer, more robust understanding of the world around us (NeuroLaunch, 2024).” Dual Coding can also be practiced as well. Said above, about the participants being tested on their practice and using their knowledge of imagery and words, it did not go as well as everyone had expected. According to Dual Coding Theory in Practice, it states that, “A study on the use of multimedia resources in teaching anatomy found that students who were taught using a combination of text, images, and videos performed better than those who were taught using text alone (Lee).”
Conclusion
Even though Dual Coding is being practiced daily, it is still encouraged to be educated, as well as starting from childhood. It is still being used for tests for participants. I do think it is really cool to look more into information that you may not know about.