The phrase ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’

Means that you can describe something by producing a picture just as well as by using a 1000 of words. “A picture is worth a thousand words” is an English idiom, the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single still image or that an image of a subject conveys its meaning or essence more effectively than a description does.

There is some research evidence that visual images are remembered differently than verbal material in the mind. For example, it is much quicker to read the word “shoe” off a page than it is to look at a picture of one and say the word “shoe.” Also, in many research tests, the mind has been shown to have a much larger memory for pictures than words. In other words, if you are shown 20 pictures and 20 words, you are much more likely to remember the pictures.

This fact is an important reason why many mnemonics rely on making mental visualizations. Since images are easier to recall, using a visualization of a word will help you remember it better. Additionally, visualizing a word will encode it into your visual memory as well as your verbal memory, which doubles your chances of keeping it in your brain.