Brain Rules: Chapter 10 Vision

Brain Rules: Chapter 10 Vision

Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.

On of the principles I base my work on is Universal Design in Learning. We pay greater attention to things that move. We pay attention to and remember images. Animation combines these and there for is a powerful tool for a teacher. This is one of the foundations of universal design in learning. The more ways to access information the more likely there will be success in learning. Text, sound, images, animation should be a part of every learning environment if we wish to increase the likely hood that students will be engaged with the material, paying attention and learning.

The following are some quotes that caught my attention.

“We actually experience our visual environment as a fully analyzed opinion about what the brain thinks is out there.” (pg 225)

“…researchers have known for more then 100 years that pictures and text follow very different rules. Put it simply, the more visual the input becomes the more likely it is to be recognized and recalled.” In one experiment “picture recognition was reliably retrieved several decades later.” (pg 233)

“If information is presented orally, people remember about 10 percent, tested 72 hours after exposure. That figure goes up to 65 percent if you add a picture.” (pg 234)

Your thoughts?

2 thoughts on “Brain Rules: Chapter 10 Vision

  1. One thing that I remember from this chapter was the reminder that words are really images. Our brains group the letters into an image and that is translated into a word.
    Making a leap this should lead educators to truly be interested in what font they select for a particular purpose. Serif fonts, those with little bumps or tails on the ends of lines in the letters, such as Time New Roman, are better suited for printed page. Where as Sans Serif fonts, those thought of to be smooth fonts, such as Arial, are better suited for screen reading.
    Unfortunately teachers go with what is pleasing on the screen and invariably make the mistake of printing it.

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