Learning and Visuals
Did you know that visual aids improve learning up to 400%? There are many things that contribute to this. Here are a few:
- Humans process visuals almost 60,000 times fast than text.
- 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual.
- 65% of the population is visual learners.
A study has found that after a three day period people were able to retain 10-20% of written or spoken information. The study also found that individuals retained ~65% of visual information. Another study showed when testing for immediate comprehension that illustrated text was 9% more effective than text only. When the test was delayed, illustrated text was 83% more effective.
“Unless our words, concepts, ideas are hooked onto an image, they will go in one ear, sail through the brain, and go out the other ear. Words are processed by our short-term memory where we can only retain about seven bits of information,” Dr. Lynell Burmark.
Let’s try an exercise. First, I am going to describe an image and I want you to see how long it takes you to guess what it is. Second, I am going to show you an image of this object and I want you to see how long it take you to guess what it is. Don’t scroll past the indicators.
This poll comes out from the ground 10 feet in the air. On the top of this item is a flat glass board that is about 72 inches wide and 42 inches tall. On the bottom portion of this is a cylindrical metallic circle. What is this?
Stop! Don’t scroll past this! Now I am going to show you an image of the object.
It’s a basketball hoop! When provided with a visual, you were able to instantly understand what the object is.
Decision Making and Visuals
A study led by a Michigan State University neuroscientist, Dr. Jan Brascamp, determined that the visual cortex makes decisions just like the brain’s higher-level areas. The visual cortex, the part of the brain that is responsible for seeing and generating pictures in our head, also has the ability to “choose.” Before this study was conducted it was though that the association cortex was primarily responsible for making choices because it is known for higher-level functions. Let me show you this in action:
When you see this image what do you see first? A duck or a rabbit? The study at Michigan State University concluded that it was your visual cortex that made the distinction for you.
Researchers at Iowa State University conducted an experiment to see if they could get 6-12 year olds to eat salad and veggies over burgers, tacos, and sloppy joes. The researchers decided to create visually compelling digital signage of the healthy foods. They found that salad consumption went up as much as 90% when shown on digital displays and that boys were 50-70% more likely to serve themselves salads when presented with vivid imagery.
“The more vivid the image, in terms of movement, color and accuracy of representation, the more realistic, the more it’s going to stimulate your response to it,” Mennecke said.
Here are more statistics to show how people respond to visuals:
- Consumers are 64-85% more likely to buy a product after viewing a product video. (source)
- 37% increase in engagement from targeted customers if adding more compelling visual elements optimizes the article. (source)
- 40% of users online will provide better and more favorable responses to a particular visual content than other plain and text-based content. (source)
- Posts that include images produce 650% higher engagement than text-only posts. (source)
- Your content can generate up to 94% more views if you add compelling visual elements and graphics. (source)
AR is expanding on our visual offerings
Visuals are constantly changing. This isn’t new. The first camera was invented in 1816 and the first recorded video was shot in 1888. These have evolved so much from their early days and there will continue to be new ways that content is made. Augmented Reality is emerging as a new form of content. Footlocker created an Augmented Reality experience in one of their stores featuring LeBron James. James tweeted a video of the experience and had 1.25 Million Views on the first day alone. Companies such as Boeing are using Augmented Reality to provide their workers with information.
AR offers a great opportunity for your company to stand out among competitors. If you’re interested on how to get started on a project, fill out the form below.