To remember something, it is better not to write, but to draw

    imageWaterloo University Canadian scientists have found that sketching the information you need to remember is a great way to improve your memory. If you want to remember something better, the best way is to sketch it.

    “We compared sketches with many other memorization strategies, but drawing outperforms everyone,” said Jeffrey Wammes, Ph.D. in psychology at the university. “We believe that the advantage lies in the ability to create a more cohesive memory that combines the visual component, motor skills and semantics.”

    In the experiment, students participating in the experiment were offered a list of simple concepts that could easily be sketched (for example, an “apple”). They had 40 seconds, during which they could either sketch an object or write its name several times.

    Then they were given an abstract task related to working with music so that the words they memorized passed into a long-term memory. Then they were returned to the list of words and asked to remember as much as possible in 60 seconds.

    It turned out that students who sketched concepts were generally better able to remember as many words as possible. In other cases, a person could recall twice as many sketched concepts as the one who wrote them down.

    The results were not affected by different variations with attempts to memorize words in written form, such as embellishment of letters, recording words in a certain order, listing physical properties of objects, etc. Pictures won out against handwritten words even when subjects took only 4 seconds to sketch instead of 40.

    In addition, the researchers emphasized that the quality of the drawings did not affect the quality of memorizing words - the technique works regardless of the student’s artistic talent.

    So far, the technique has been used only for single words. Scientists are now trying to understand why it works so well, and how it can be adapted to work with other types of information.

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