{"pk":50267,"title":"The superiority of graphics over text in long-term memory retention","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Graphical representations of data are pervasive in modern communication and are often used to convey socio-economic, scientific and medical information. Despite their popularity, it is still unknown whether they can enhance the long-term retention of their content. We conducted an incidental delayed recall task with psychology undergraduates (N=92), in which participants read about the evolution of a socio-economic phenomenon, with few datapoints presented either as a graphics, a text, or a table. We found that graphics facilitated the remembering of the general trends of the data after a two-hour interval. No advantage was found on immediate recall of numerical values in another sample of participants (N=80). Thus, even for equal initial encoding of numerical information, and even for very concise materials, graphics facilitate long-term retention. Overall, the study reveals the potential of graphics as effective tools for enhancing memory retention and therefore highlights their valuable role in educational settings.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Education; Psychology; Instruction and teaching; Learning; Memory"}],"section":"Member Abstracts with Poster Presentation","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2k3906g9","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Lorenzo","middle_name":"","last_name":"Ciccione","name_suffix":"","institution":"Coll�ge de France - PSL University","department":""},{"first_name":"Syalie","middle_name":"","last_name":"Liu","name_suffix":"","institution":"Coll�ge de France","department":""},{"first_name":"Stanislas","middle_name":"","last_name":"Dehaene","name_suffix":"","institution":"NeuroSpin Center, CEA DRF/I2BM, INSERM, UnicersitŽ Paris-Sud, UniversitŽ Paris-Saclay","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2025-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/50267/galley/38229/download/"}]}