Musings #1 - Visual Superiority Effect

If I photograph a cloud and show it to an audience, the viewer can confidently interpret the image for what it is, a cloud - this is a truth.

If I say the word ‘cloud’ or write the letters ‘c l o u d’, the listener or reader is required to use their imagination to mentally translate the words and sounds in order to identify and imagine something in the sky.

The words and sounds are less of a truth than the photograph because the words are abstract and differ throughout the world to identify exactly the same object. Therefore, photography is a universal language that has no boundaries or constraints.

In his 1972 book, Ways of Seeing, John Berger stated that ‘Seeing comes before words.’ He demonstrated the point by writing that a child can recognise an object long before it can read - a child can recognise a cloud in the sky before it can read the word ‘cloud’ written down.

This is part of the visual superiority effect, which goes onto state that we remember images long after we have forgotten the text. An image on a slide is more memorable than the bullet points it accompanies. Images in an editorial are more vivid than the article.