Converting Words Into Pictures
Visualize the word you want to spell
The human brain is divided into two hemispheres: left and right. Each hemisphere
has specialized capabilities and each processes different types of information.
The left hemisphere operates in a rational, analytical manner. It processes
verbal information. It is the seat of language and logical thinking. It
organizes and categorizes information. The right hemisphere operates in an
intuitive, holistic manner. It processes visual and spatial information. It is
the seat of creativity and imagination. It combines separate elements to form
coherent wholes.
Note taking, lecturing, reading, and analytical thought are left brain skills.
Recognizing patterns, configurations, shapes, and forms; intuitive thought; and
visualization are right-brain skills. Students spend most of their time
developing left brain (verbal) skills. Those students who are also thinking
pictorially, focusing on the whole instead of on separate parts, and trusting
intuition, are taking advantage of both of the ways in which the brain makes
learning possible.
According to Allan Paivio of the University of Western
Ontario, who has done a great deal of research on memory, if you commit facts
and ideas to memory through words only, you are using only half of your
brainpower.1 When a fact or idea that you memorized through words (and stored in
the left hemisphere of your brain) is also memorized through a picture or sketch
(and is stored in the right hemisphere of your brain), you set up a powerful
combination in your memory. You can draw on this combination later when you need
to recall the fact or idea.
For holistic learning to take place, the left side of your brain must cooperate
and harmonize with the right side. This cooperation is easy to gain if you make
it a habit to convert words into actual pictures or diagrams in your notes, or
to convert words into mental pictures or images on the blackboard of your mind.
Verbal descriptions often lend themselves quite easily to visual representation.
Unfortunately, in many textbooks, pictures and diagrams are not as numerous as
they should be. When a key concept lacks a picture, you can act as your
textbook's illustrator by drawing what you read.
References:
1Allan Pavio, Imagery and Verbal Process (New York Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1971), pp. 522-23.
Pauk, Walter, How to Study in College, p. 210.
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