The Hand, the Eye, the Image

"Let me draw you a picture" is a favored learning technique, and it may also be the most effective way of committing something to memory.

a group led by psychologist Jeffrey D. Wammes recruited sample groups of students and ran seven different trials of essentially the same experiment on them. In all of the trials, the scientists started with a list of 80 simple words—all nouns and all easy to draw, such as balloon, fork, kite, pear, peanut and shoe. A random series of 30 of those words were flashed on a screen along with instructions either to draw the object or write down its name.

But no matter how many variations of the test the researchers ran, one result was consistent: Drawing the object beat every other option, every single time.

GWB self-portrait (People)

Your humble blogger has zero artistic ability but is thinking of taking a few drawing or painting classes, if for no other reason than to stave off age-related memory loss.

Note: once again George W Bush leads the way.