Visual_Design_and_Memorabilia

Taylor Dukes 902759266 B1-1101 Personal Memory and The Importance of Visual Imagery When remembering past events, context clues are usually present and are the tour guides through which memories can be recaptured. According to These context clues can come in the form of a variety of different properties, such as vision, hearing, smell, taste, emotion, narrative and language (Rubin 79). These components are what help individuals recollect on personal events that have shaped and molded their lives. While each and every property plays a key role in remembering the past, visual imagery stands out among the rest and is therefore noted as a very reliant context clue when it comes to correctly retrieving memories. Personal memory involves recollections of that individual’s past by using multimodal systems. Individual senses, emotions, language, and narratives all have a role in the memory process. Each of these components were put to the test in an experiment performed at Duke University where a random group of individuals were asked to recall thirty events and rate the strength or accuracy of each one, and then later were asked to rate their memories on a scale of vividness of visual and auditory imagery, emotions felt, and narrative coherency (Rubin 81). After averaging and analyzing the results, the memories with the greatest strength of “believed accuracy” were also the memories that were mostly visual, showing a strong correlation between the two. Visual imagery is deemed as an important component in respect to memory because of the likelihood that the event is accurately depicted by the visual context clues. When one sees oneself in a picture of a past event, he can remember more precisely the details of that event more so than if someone asked him to recollect the event without a visual medium (Burns 71). This shows the great affect vision has on encompassing a person to not only remembered the past but to also relive it. This is because the imagery that is allocating the recollection is based around an original experience (Thompson 7). These pictures, which are visual, can end up becoming multimodal by imagining the event it depicts and the emotions that were felt that day, along with the noise that accompanied the event. Visual imagery can bring back recollections of the past more easily. There are five main components to visual imagery that helps achieve the overall goal of retrieving information from long-term memory and putting it toward working memory. These three dimensions are vividness, clarity of the image, and quantity of different images inspired (Rugg 1098). The more in-depth these dimensions are, the easier to generate mental images, which are ultimately linked to one’s past. The readily available visual imagery that contributes to the easy recollection of past events makes vision a common component in the remembering process. When personal aspects of one’s life can be seen through photographs, pictures, or even abstract objects, a memory related can usually be traced back to and relived. Works Cited Burns, Alvin C., Laurie A. Babin, and Abhijit Biswas. “The Operation of Visual Imagery as a Mediator of Advertising Effects.” Journal of Advertising, Vol. 22, No. 2, (1993): 71-85. This article argues how visual imagery above all other senses should be put into use when designing advertisements because it shapes consumer’s impressions. Visual imagery is the best medium in which to recall events and experience an impact. This source will contribute to my project not in the advertising portion, but with all its information about the vividness of visuals affecting individuals the greatest. This article is highly credible. Not only was it found through JSTOR, but also the authors work in the management field and conduct many researches. Rubin, David C. “A Basic-Systems Approach to Autobiographical Memory.” Current Directions in Psychological Science. Vol. 14, No. 2, (2005): 79-83. Rubin states in his article how vision, hearing, smell, emotion, language, and narrative all can help a person to recall a memory. Recollection of events from the past is triggered by these components, with an emphasis on vision. This source will contribute to my project with all the experiments and researches the author and his colleagues performed to show how visual imagery and strong memories correlate. This is only 6 years of age, and is from a very reliable source, a Psychology Professor with a PhD at Duke University. Rugg, Michael D., Leun J. Otten, and Richard N. A. Henson. “The Neural Basis of Episodic Memory: Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, Vol. 357, No. 1424, (2002): 1097-1110. This article states all the scientific inquiries of how memory works within the brain. I will use this to show how which parts of the brain and what is related to such part are used when recollecting past events. The article is fairly recent, and the conductors of research are qualified professionals. Thompson, Charles P. Autobiographical Memory: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives. New Jersey: L. Erlbaum, (1998). Print. Thompson’s book expresses many themes of memory: accuracy and distortion of memory in children and adults, emotion and memory, and imagery and memory. My key focus is on the visual imagery aspects and how they relate to personal memory, or autobiographical memory. This book was under the “books” tab on the Eng 1101- Memory and Representation- J Munro webpage and should be a reliable source. Also, Charles P. Thompson is a credible author.