The science of visual storytelling

B.A. Gonczarek

I’m here with Reshan Richards, welcome Reshan. 

Reshan is a researcher, educator, and a writer of two books on technology and leadership, with the last book titled Make Yourself Clear on how to use a teaching mindset to be understood. Reshan also co-founded a whiteboarding platform used for teaching in many schools across the glob and it’s where we teamed up. And this cross-roads of technology and education is something that I’m sure will be inspiring for our listeners when we discuss the science of how we learn. Was my introduction of your background accurate Reshan?

B.A. Gonczarek

I’m here with Reshan Richards welcome Reshan.Reshan is a researcher, educator, and a writer of two books on technology and leadership, with the last book titled Make Yourself Clear on how to use a teaching mindset to be understood. Reshan also co-founded a whiteboarding platform used for teaching in many schools across the glob and it’s where we teamed up. And this cross-roads of technology and education is something that I’m sure will be inspiring for our listeners when we discuss the science of how we learn. Was my introduction of your background accurate Reshan?

Reshan Richards

Oh, I think so. It was a very kind and generous introduction. Thank you. 

B.A. Gonczarek

Great. So, to begin, let me confront you with this thought. We humans are storytellers no matter what technology we use in the process. The stories are very efficient keras for ideas, would you agree?

Reshan Richards

I would absolutely agree with that statement.

B.A. Gonczarek

There are two interesting avenues to explore: On the receiver’s end – there’s the question of “how we learn”, on the presenter’s end – how do we provide stories?  The right combination of both is essential in education, to learn things, it is also essential in persuasion outside educational realm. The better we tell our stories the more we improve chances for being understood. Right?

So my goal for today is then to explore with you the scientific foundations of visual storytelling. Let’s try to provide for the benefit of our listeners. What are the underlying facts of storytelling, we gathered scientific papers were inspired with and we’ll use those for our discussions will be doodling and sketching while exploring the papers. So if any listener would want to see us doing that, please use YouTube link provided with the podcast. 

Now we’re Reshan, we have five stunning articles to discuss and I’m looking for a good starting points, maybe let’s cover the difference between the verbal and textual first. 

So, this one comes from knowledge Media Research Center in Germany, and the article asks what improves learning results, text or pictures, while the bulk of existing research is focused on the sequence in which text or picture is provided in learning. This paper, however, operates under the assumption that it is not the sequence rather the function of text or picture in the process of learning. So they look at the function and they defined text. It’s actually in this part here. Then define text as verbal coat in a short or long prose Or instructions, let’s say. However, pictures come in different forms as less or more abstract representations of objects that still contain some similarities. So pictures in the research can be a photo, but also a doodle, or a map diagram, graphic organizer, or let’s say concept map. And the conclusion the way I see it is that the type of information to be learned dictates the way it should be presented. Basically, some materials are better one learned when provided us text other if they come in form of a picture, or they also suggest that the complexity of information is the key. And they conclude, acknowledging that their work is more of a guideline for future research server. Reshan, what’s your perspective as a teacher and a graphical facilitator at the same time, what your experience tells you about using pictures versus text?

Reshan Richards

Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it’s a great kind of area of thought. And I’m chuckling as I’m looking at the closing statement from this research, because to degree, almost all new contemporary research on emerging phenomenon always include this idea that hey, well, this should now be extended into a further study, which it’s, it’s so true, right? Like not, nothing is conclusive yet. And I think what’s also interesting about what you shared in thinking about the, you know, that it’s about choice, right? So if you’ve got an idea or concept or some bit of knowledge or understanding that you’re trying to convey or build in somebody, you’re certainly going to make choices about, you know, either the sequencing or even the more binary choice of text or image as like, well what’s the best medium to convey that, but I think, you know, that that’s still to a degree one directional so as a teacher The other thing that we’re also going to be thinking about is about the receiver. And the reality and kind of the emerging research that validates it that people have different modalities that depending on the concept or content that they might be more dominant in. So for example, you know, there might be some people who for certain types of topics or disciplines that are much better auditory listener, so we’re and then some people, while they might be highly visual, they might be visual towards text and reading narrative. And another visual learner might also be much more into photo and imagery. So ultimately, as as people who are trying to communicate to teach trying to persuade, as you mentioned before, there’s just it starts with a baseline understanding that you do have to be really intentional about the format that you’re presenting the content information in. And then you also need to be really thoughtful about the learning styles and channels of that audience member.

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, when looking from my perspective, when I learned complex things, I like picture to form a structure and then leave the details to sit inside of a picture inside of picture as a text. So it’s essentially the same idea as infographics, where we, we mix graphical form with textual content. So  this “blending” thing is it’s something that there is no clean part between one modality and the other that you suggested is rather at blend to convey an idea, isn’t it?

Reshan Richards

Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it. Blended media, mixed media, mixed modalities. I think anybody who’s interested in, you know, the types of things we’re talking around here. Those would be those would be good. words to describe it like and, you know, yeah, this blend this mix of, of a representation or presentation of information.

B.A. Gonczarek

Right. So let me present you a second piece of research that discusses the suitability of medium again, pictures of loads when communicating with either people we know, or strangers. It turns out that we’re inclined to use different medium. When sharing thoughts with someone that is known to us and different when we communicate with someone we don’t have much in common. So the authors here, they describe six experiments to build the evidence that it is, in fact, the distance that sets our preference for choosing between using text and pictures. And again, in this paper as before authors looking to unique characteristics of both pictures and text. Pictures are defined as concrete representation as analogies of the real world. While words nearly always are abstract, with arbitrary relationships to their corresponding subjects. They even stayed that the word is actually a category that refers to a broad range of concrete objects. Words carry the essence of an object, but usually not its properties. So in result, it turns out that pictures are more often use among friends. And the use of words translated better over distance. What’s your reaction to that?

Reshan Richards

That’s so interesting, because I would have expected it to be the inverse and mostly because when trying to have the challenges of distance and proximity or lack of process activity, you would think that the more concrete representation would be helpful for kind of eliminating misunderstanding. So this is really interesting that it’s actually, at least for people’s preferences, what they measured in practice, that those who were working with known people tended to use more images. But part of that also, I’m so curious that like, in their work, is it also that familiarity means that in one ways, you’re being concrete but you’re also not doing some of the formalities as far as supplying kind of preamble or context for the thing that is sent. Whereas with a stranger or across distance, you almost do have to use more words to kind of set up somebody for whatever is trying to be communicated. I also thought about you know, I’ve done a lot of work and teaching across distance and having meetings and conversations and you know, small and large video conference. rooms. And I have found that those types of meetings are always more effective when either there’s an existing relationship that you have had some closer in person time with the parties so that your first meeting isn’t the one that’s there, or if it’s going to be like a regular ongoing thing that you you find a way to blend it together. And I what I mean by this is, you know, a lot of companies are certainly looking to do more sales motions, more customer service, customer success types of things online, but I almost I think it becomes a mistake based on like, some of the things you’re describing here to think it can be 100% substitute for that real kind of close on connected engagement. And I think the companies who are succeeding are realizing you can be more selective about when you do have those in person content. But then you can still do a lot of the other work using digital media light, like, you know, video conferences or what we’re doing a collaborative whiteboard to still like maintain and strengthen that relationship. 

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah, absolutely. I think in that setting, you would want to find a solution to close the gap to get you closer to the to the recipient of your information. And I agree that the findings here are kind of counterintuitive, but there’s a good reason why is it so. The authors  refer to CLT (Construal Level Theory) that states that people increasingly use more abstract representations when communicating with those they don’t know that match. And the reason for that is that people seem to be afraid to provide too much personal information to those that are not yet considered friends. Therefore, they use disembodied  linguistic representations of text while leaving concrete contextualized pictures for communicating with those that they have already. something in common? You see the point here?

Reshan Richards

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, when you describe it that way like I can, I can fully relate that there’s this, this the psychological element in in detaching any potential clues or to specific or to accurate details because of not being too familiar with the audience. So that’s that that makes sense, even though as you said it on the surface feels very counterintuitive.

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah, absolutely. The visual representations seem to be more appropriate when we already share a piece of reality with the person on the other end. That’s, that’s basically what they found.  But I wonder, in teaching environment, I guess being specific and being clear, is the goal, right?

Reshan Richards

Oh, absolutely. I mean, that that’s the thing, can you not only you know, transmit or share some idea or concept but clarity comes from confirming understanding, and that with the most efficacy or efficiency, that that understanding was built. I mean, that’s really what what clarity happens, like I have something that I want to convey or to build in somebody else. And clarity comes when that is done with the least amount of friction.

B.A. Gonczarek

Right. But does that actually says the preference for using pictures instead of woods?

Reshan Richards

 I think that anytime you can be more concrete… Let me let me rewind that. I do believe there could be a correlation between the concrete nature of a representation and clarity. I think so. So here’s, here’s an example where the mix of pictures and words in a professional setting can can often get to get in the way of that clarity. So often when doing kind of employee or, you know, supervisor evaluations and review comments are often left in text, right? So, a supervisor might write text comments typed up in a narrative added to a file, dot, dot dot. And so it’s immediately already a couple of degrees away from the actuality of the work, right? Because it’s the supervisors interpretation of what might have been observed and communicated, but then re re put out in text form. Whereas if somebody just had a simple snapshot, or a video of that behavior, action, or whatever somebody being, their performance is being evaluated in you almost removing all of that abstraction. It’s like super concrete, like, how does someone so lead a small group meeting? You know, I could write a narrative about it. Or I could just make a 32nd clip of here’s how somebody kicked off their meeting. And that concrete thing will actually get to that greater clarity of the situation. But I still as a supervisor, would want to be able to comment What’s interesting or important about that thing, but if I’m both describing it and then commenting on it, it’s immediately a few degrees of separated away from what you might have been trying to look at in the first place.

B.A. Gonczarek

 I think that’s a, that’s a great example. So moving on to the two pieces of research that you provided it on memory and meaning making, which one you think should come first, which one would you like to tackle?

Reshan Richards

So I find that that this picture of superiority effect body of research is really important because I want I think it’s connected to the two studies or articles which you referred to, and what I like and it took so first of all, it’s already building off of previous research that to a degree validated, you know, in in pretty controlled experimental studies where somebody was given just an audio representation of some Something, something that had audio plus text, and then something that had audio plus image in these controlled experiments, the retention. So this is really about like recall and memory call. But the audio plus picture almost always outperformed any of the other two groups, right as far as people’s retention and recall. So that’s interesting, right as a baseline, but you can’t make too many generalized conclusions just based off of you know, these kinds of experimental studies. This particular one that I selected and pulled out that builds deeper into it was looking between correlate or looking for correlations between the sorry, it was looking for correlations of the extent of this effect and age. So as you get older, how much more pronounced is this picture superiority effect over the other two modes. And this particular study did find that there is absolutely a correlation, we’re not going to call it causality. But as people get older, this picture superiority effect actually escalates and gets reinforced even stronger. And it’s because when you add your days and months and years of life experience, you’ve had time to reinforce these mental images or mental models or visualizations of different things that you’re capable of having certain retention and recall in a greater degree because of all your prior knowledge. So while it was still present in younger people, it was the the difference of the the extent of this effect was far less pronounced than in their older subjects. 

B.A. Gonczarek

You know, that’s quite fascinating, you know, it also proves how much we learn about the picture superiority effect recently. You know, the last time I checked her there were like 40 articles on the subject and the number is growing rapidly these days, too. So it shows that this area still needs further inquiry to what I personally like about picture superiority effect is its linkage with our spatial memory where location of elements help understanding and I was taking by illustration explaining the historical logic using just one picture I don’t know if you if you know that one.

Reshan Richards

Now tell me more about that.

B.A. Gonczarek

It’s the picture that describes the entire logic of Aristotle. Once you familiarize with it, the beauty of that is that you can literally close your eyes and the recall by location each bit. It’s a breathtaking example of how of how this effect works yet, we don’t know for sure still, why it works and in what age group would work the best. Let the quickly pull the example of this illustration real quick to our whiteboard here.

Reshan Richards

Yeah, I’d love to see that. Yeah.

B.A. Gonczarek

Okay. That was something that was used for teaching students a long time ago, though, but it’s still a real life example of using picture superiority effect. I don’t know for which age group, but still, I still love more of those visuals and photographing being used in schools for stimulating retention and recall of information. I’m sure you’re on the same with me on that. 

Reshan Richards

Yeah. This is a really cool example here.

B.A. Gonczarek

And the other material that you provided to the canvas was on doodling, right?

Reshan Richards

Yeah, so this one is  connected and it’s actually a little bit more about both the the presenter, but also the idea of inviting other to kind of doodle and visualize along with you. Now in this study, which also again, it, it has its limitations because of its experimental nature. But it was, it was having people listen to the audio, and that the group one was, as they were listening, they weren’t doing anything else. And then they had to do kind of like a rent attention and recall. And the other group was doing, as they were listening was also just asked to draw and doodle on whatever like notepad they have. And somehow, the kind of externalization of, of just kind of like sketching, jotting things down I believe some of their notes were relevant. Some of them were just kind of like random, like the things that you might see in a in a middle school, child’s notebook. But there was still a measurable effect on retaining When other kind of expressive channels were active at the same time that somebody was hearing some audio. And what’s interesting to me and the things that I like to dive into is that this in this study, there was no real guidelines around the doodling. But in thinking about situations where you’re trying to build understanding and somebody and you presented some information, having them activate more channels, and then just their listening and their visual, cognitive channels, but actually starting to a little bit of like haptic or even kinesthetic action, and at the same time and this so I put this notice here about random versus purposeful doodling that I think there’s so much to be learned and considered that when you’ve got people engaged, that you’re trying to trying to help them learn. Have them activate the same positive principles around visual visual storytelling in their own note taking and reception and consumption. The information right so it shouldn’t all those benefits that we’ve kind of highlighted and talked about from the delivery standpoint to me have just as much value in the recipient or participant and I felt like this study in particular is kind of a stepping stone or starting point in considering how the recipients channels can be activated towards building that  greater clarity and understanding

B.A. Gonczarek

Right, but you know, for me, this shape-shading task also reveals something that is counter intuitive, you know. How come one might recall better if the thing he or she is drawing is not directly connected to the subject of the discussion, right? I find it surprising and I would wish to know more about what was at work on the cognitive level. 

Reshan Richards

Yeah, and you know, like for me as somebody who you know, does practice graphic facilitation or sketch noting or however, visual note taking all these different terms that it can be described it I do find sometimes that even when I’m trying to be a very active listener, that I will do some random doodles or shapes, kind of in the meat in the midst, or in the middle of maybe some things that were a little bit more purposeful or relevant. And sometimes they’re just these kind of, in between or bridge moments between like, big concepts. And it’s almost this like, continuation instead of like being like, on off on off. You’re just constantly like in a flow. And yeah, sometimes they just become things of the background or filling the page. But in, in your, in my own review of the things that I might have taken notes on. I remember when I see like a random structure like this, oh, that was an in between moment. And I don’t have to admit, I’ve actually visualize something that I know I don’t have to worry about later, which is kind of almost like how often do you take notes on things you don’t want to remember? But but it brings back recognition of the like the setting or the scenario. So like, I don’t know, in some weird way, maybe maybe this is like the words of a maniac, but like I actually find it helpful to have useless notes, but be able and like they actually helped me filter out the things that are more meaningful on that same page.

B.A. Gonczarek

Right. So actually font something that is related to this, but actually speaks about drawing representations of concrete scientific phenomena instead of just, you know, shading something or, as you mentioned, doing useless drawings. This is an inquiry wood drawing does when we learn science, and it’s an article that comes from August 2011 issue of the Science Magazine, and the authors here… they make a point that visuals are crucial for learning. They suggest that the proficiency in science requires learning to develop representational skills. And I don’t know about you but I’m easily persuaded by that as I cannot imagine how anyone could cope with, let’s say, a concept of particles or chemical reactions without abstract visual representations, right?

Reshan Richards

I mean, what’s so interesting is I think we could probably like do a little bit of like historical digging that any kind of scientific phenomenon or principles, it was probably easier to pass those down in Britain, because of like the printing press, the printing press can much more easily replicate, you know, the written or the printed form word than it could have with graphics, right? Because you didn’t have type sets to pull from to create, you know, highly complex visual drawing. So, you know, the original researchers and publishers from back in the day probably had to default to very text heavy ways of transform, transferring and scaling out information and then it just became a default. I think maybe only in recent times has the technology. And the formats of publishing become a little bit more accessible to let’s call, let’s call them lay people that, you know, these visual representations as a dominant form as far as impacting science proficiency, like you said, I mean, seems obvious, like, of course, how could it not?

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah. I also remember that from from Dürer’s perspective, Albrecht Dürer’s. During his times, were the times when the printing press was brand new, and he was already trying to find a way to incorporate those hand drawings into the printed materials just to inspire thinking, you know, to inspire this  mode of exploration. What is interesting in this article, though, is that it mentions the surveys that indicate that those students that drew to explore to coordinate or to justify understanding where more motivated to learn in the end. So basically we can improve understanding, in other words, by working on graphical representations of what we start to know or what we already know. So that’s something that I actually really like –  stating that the drawing is in fact, way of reasoning. And it’s a different kind of reasoning than, let’s say, argumentation. It’s the creative reasoning to engage and explore ideas by refining your drawings of concepts. So instead of looking at the picture, as some sort of fixed universal illustration, we begin to see it as an artifact of cognition. So I’m sure Michelle, that this is essential from the perspective of a teacher, isn’t it? What are the opportunities for having such a window into students thinking?

Reshan Richards

So the thing that was resonating or stirring curiosity in me as you were sharing that were these connections between drawing As a form of reasoning, but the the embedded layer which I jotted down in my margins here is around intrinsic motivation. And I think through reasoning via drawing, I think I would surmise that the reason that students might be able to perform or share or achieve greater proficiency might be because the process of drawing as a form of reasoning is like an intrinsically motivating exercise. There’s a reward in being able to communicate and demonstrate understanding and kind of untangle complex things. That’s kind of harder to do in a more abstract setting, like trying to use the constraints of text and paragraph and sentence structure and all of the other elements that are part of printed text that again are separating the learner from you know, The true expression or representation of what is being thought. And it doesn’t surprise me. And I absolutely think there’s connections to what we’re trying to as what as teachers were trying to achieve in classrooms, which is to instill this kind of love or intrinsically motivated joy around learning, so that it’s not seen as transactional, but rather, it’s it’s fundamental. It’s pure and natural curiosity. 

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah. Yeah. And what is also astonishing that drawings actually lay a foundation for future learning. So it helps students to discern key features and also understand challenges as they go. Right.

Reshan Richards

Yeah. And I mean, there’s, there’s some like really interesting, like papers and articles that talk about how drawing traditionally in schools and I’m talking about K to 12 schools, and I mean, certainly even higher ed, that there’s a perception that Using imagery using doodle sketching things out, is childish or juvenile and not academic or scholarly enough. I think it’s exciting because of conversations like these and pulling scholarly research and really trying to surface all of the values and true like cognitive benefits of visualization and doodling that it might contribute to changing that perception that, hey, I can write my dissertation in the form of a graphic novel, right? And somebody has done that before. And you and I have talked about some somebody who went to who did their doctorate at Teachers College at Columbia University, in that form. Now granted, that person may have been purposefully trying to brush up against norms, but it was completely valid and you want you need kind of pioneers and people to do things like that. To set the example like there are other ways to convey excellence to convey scholarly work to convey findings from research that don’t have to fall into kind of these traditional formats. I mean, all of the articles that were pulled up here, if you look at them, they look like very traditional papers, right? Because that is kind of the societal norm for conveyance of knowledge. So that almost brushes up against what we’re talking about here, which are the many other ways that people are able to transfer into to receive information.

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah, absolutely. I think you’re spot on here Reshan. Before we close. Let’s try to briefly summarize what we’ve learned from those papers that we discussed. I can try to do that unless you’d like to start first.

Reshan Richards

All right, let me try to zoom out on the big picture here. Okay. And so, let me try to think of like three overarching cues, thoughts that that anybody who’s engaging in this, this conversation might take away. So the first is, there is a growing body of contemporary research. that’s helping make clear the links between visualizing information and better proficiency and understanding it exists and it’s increasingly valid. Second would be that people who have the job or charge the responsibility of communicating to others have to consider the ways that people learn and receive information in their design. There’s never going to be one strict way. But there’s going to be many modalities and modes and today there are far more tools and choices for being able to do that kind of communication. And the third one would be around kind of challenging traditional constraints and norms around what professional what academic communication is supposed to look like, when in the end. It’s really about being clear and getting to a point of under Standing as effectively as possible.

B.A. Gonczarek

Well, I think I fully agree with you. One additional thought to the second point that you mentioned. For me, I’m most excited about this concept of drawing as a form of reasoning. And the reason I’m excited about is that because technologies now are so good at broadening concept of growing with, let’s say, motion or ad-hoc provided animations. The technology makes it easy to transform existing digital assets into something I like to call “smashing bits & pixels” to represent what you need from what you have in your documents or photo library. So a collage, a digital collage is one example of that, but also, our use of the whiteboard here during this conversation is  another example. I just think that the phenomenon of Visual Thinking is empowered by the use of digital medium. So before to be a digital thinker, one needed to acquire at least basic drawing skills, right? But now with digital tools that we have, that seems completely optional, as instead of drawing, one can rearrange existing representations to perform, as we call it here, creative reasoning, and be open for all benefits that we discuss here. Would you agree?

Reshan Richards

I agree. Absolutely. And I would say that so many people, when they think about having these kinds of open ended visual experiences, say, Well, I can’t draw so I can’t participate, but all you need to everybody, if they’ve got, you know, you know, their, their, their hands and arms or whatever else they can manipulate to create something on a piece of paper or on a screen, can draw a line can draw a circle can draw an arrow. These are not advanced, you know, you don’t have to go to art school to be able to construct those things. And because as you said, the technology helps make it easier to bring in different types of visual content. This isn’t about being a great artist. This is about putting visual information together in order to help things make more sense.

B.A. Gonczarek

Well, Reshan, thank you for sharing your perspective. I’m positive that are many ways we could further explore the scientific foundations of learning and visual storytelling. So let’s pause here for now here the reaction of our listeners and perhaps continue in the future, shall we?

Reshan Richards

That sounds great. Thanks very much.

Here are the resources we discussed during our conversation: