When you think of words, do you see them in your mind?

If you close your eyes and visualise an elephant, you experience mental imagery – visual imagery. But mental imagery is far more impactful in our mental life than just imagining. Visual imagery happens with each of our senses, and it plays a crucial role in perception and memory, emotions, language, desires and action execution.

Neuroscience has enabled us to distinguish between being shown a picture (visual teaching) and making up a picture in your head (visual learning), for example, making up images when reading a story.

Mental imagery is a tool for visual learning; depending on the story, the images you make up may not be the same as someone else's. Have you read a book and then gone to see the movie made from this book, and felt it is not right?

Mental imagery is a form of representation. It is seeing with the mind's eye.

The visual sense is the fastest system we have for learning and is the natural way young children learn – using their imagination.

Many research papers today show how vital mental imagery is to our ability to think and learn. These research papers concluded that mental visualisation plays specific roles in thought processes such as direct memory, problem-solving, decision-making task, and motor control.

These specific visual thinking features make it a suitable candidate to support learning (both cognitive and motor) and therefore have led to the construction of particular imagery training.

Literature has underlined the connection between children's reading skills and the capacity to create and use mental representations.

In episode 23 of The Thinking Effect podcast, we talk with our special guest, Olive Hickmott, about easy and engaging ways to utilise the power of mental imagery to enhance learning.

Olive Hickmott is a Forensic Health and Learning Coach. A reformed Dyslexic and ADHDer, she created empowering learning to enable highly creative, imaginative, neurodivergent students to learn in the most effective way for them, typically through their strengths of mental imagery. She is the architect of the New Perspectives series of personal development books and a neurodivergent advocate.

You can learn more about Olive and her fantastic work here - https://olivehickmott.wordpress.com/empowering-learning/

Tune in now to learn how you can easily harness the power of mental imagery in your teaching to enhance your students' learning.

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