Concept
Dual Coding
Dual coding means storing twice: you remember something as a word and as a picture, and that makes it last better.
- 1
Choose a picture
A photo from your camera or gallery: a room, a map, a diagram. It becomes a fixed place for what you know.
Choose a picture
A photo from your camera or gallery: a room, a map, a diagram. It becomes a fixed place for what you know.
- 2
Set points and link them
Tap distinctive spots. Each point gets its number, a word, what you want to remember – and the bridge: why exactly this spot reminds you of it.
Set points and link them
Tap distinctive spots. Each point gets its number, a word, what you want to remember – and the bridge: why exactly this spot reminds you of it.
- 3
Walk it and recall
When you study, you reveal the points one by one. Recall first, then check, then rate honestly – FSRS schedules the next round.
Walk it and recall
When you study, you reveal the points one by one. Recall first, then check, then rate honestly – FSRS schedules the next round.
Dual coding means roughly “storing twice”, namely as a word and as a picture. Read the word “elephant”. You already see a gray giant with a trunk in front of you. Your head has now stored the thing twice. If one doesn't come to mind, you can get back to it through the other.
The idea comes from Allan Paivio, a psychologist from Canada. Before he researched thoughts, he trained muscles: in 1948 he became Mr. Canada in bodybuilding. From 1969 on, he showed in experiments that words for things you can picture are much easier to remember. In 1971 he summed up his idea in a book.
When knowledge is in your head along two paths, there are also two paths back. On top of that, a picture connects lots of details at once. That is why a word with a matching picture sticks better than a word alone.
In the Bildpfad you take a single picture and hang your knowledge on points in it. That way you connect word and picture.
The research behind it
The studies this method rests on. Each one is verifiable through its DOI — looking them up is very much the point.
Words for things you can easily picture, like dog or apple, are much easier to remember than words like honor or idea, because your head makes a picture for them right away.
Mental imagery in associative learning and memory.. Psychological Review, 76(3), 241–263.
doi.org/10.1037/h0027272In this book Paivio presents his idea that the head stores words and pictures along two paths that help each other.
Imagery and Verbal Processes. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
This overview shows that the idea of storing twice explains many things that work well for learning at school, for example pictures and vivid examples.
Dual coding theory and education. Educational Psychology Review, 3(3), 149–210.
doi.org/10.1007/BF01320076
Keep watching
See the idea in motion.
Selected videos for going deeper. Each link opens the original creator on YouTube.
