How Imagination Affects Memory and Learning

Imagination and memory are connected. When you remember a place, you may replay it visually—or you may recall it in words, sounds, or a gut feeling. When you learn something new, you might rely on mental pictures, inner speech, or the feel of doing it. Your imagery profile—how strongly you imagine in each sense—shapes how you learn and remember. There is no single "best" style; there are different styles with different strengths.

Memory: More Than One Channel

Memory is not a single recording. It's built from multiple systems: what something looked like, sounded like, felt like, and what we said or thought about it. Research supports the idea that imagery creates additional memory traces: when words or events evoke mental images (either spontaneously or through deliberate effort), dual coding can improve retention and retrieval compared with a single channel. Studies also show that higher imagery vividness is associated with faster retrieval—EEG work indicates that highly vivid items are recalled more quickly than low-vividness items, with earlier neural reinstatement. In autobiographical memory, high imageability cues tend to produce more specific memories and faster retrieval, and people with higher visual imagery ability often show stronger recollection of personal memories. At the same time, imagery encoding can reduce false memories by adding distinct, item-specific information. People with strong visual imagination often describe rich visual recall; people with strong auditory imagination may remember conversations or melodies more vividly. People with aphantasia can still have strong factual and semantic memory; they use different channels.

So imagination affects memory by providing the modalities through which we encode and retrieve experience. Which channels you use depends on your profile.

Learning: Encoding and Rehearsal

When you learn, you encode information—and you often rehearse it in your head. That rehearsal can be visual (imagining a diagram or a scene), auditory (repeating a phrase or hearing a tune), or motor (feeling the movement of writing or typing). Motor imagination is especially relevant for skills: many athletes and performers "run through" movements mentally. The sense you use most easily tends to shape how you study, practice, and recall.

If you've always found it easier to learn from words and structure than from pictures, that may reflect your imagery profile. If you "hear" explanations more clearly than you "see" them, that's another pattern. None of this means one style is superior—only that matching your strategies to your profile can make learning more efficient.

No Single "Best" Style

Research doesn't support the idea that strong visual imagery is required for good memory or learning. People with low visual imagery can excel in school, work, and creative domains. They often use other strategies: verbal repetition, outlines, hands-on practice, or strong auditory or motor imagery. The goal is to understand your own mix and use it, not to try to force a style that doesn't fit. How imagination is measured across senses helps you see that mix.

Practical Takeaways

• Your imagery profile influences how you encode and recall information.
• Different senses (visual, auditory, motor, etc.) support different kinds of learning and memory.
• Low vividness in one sense doesn't mean worse memory or learning—it often means different strategies.
• Knowing your profile can help you choose study and rehearsal methods that align with how you imagine. For student-specific strategies and research (e.g. dual coding, method of loci, false memory), see Mental imagery for students.

See Your Profile

If you want to see how you imagine across all six senses—and how that might relate to your learning and memory—the Imagination Index assessment gives you a structured way to do it. You get a personalized Imagery Profile; optional paid reporting adds more detail and context. The core assessment is free and typically takes around 12 minutes.

Further reading: Autobiographical memory and imagery – PMC; Vividness and retrieval speed – PubMed; Mental imagery and memory – Stanford.