The power of pictures. How nosotros tin utilize images to promote and communicate science

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Nosotros've all heard the platitude, "a picture tells a g words", but there is existent value in using images to promote scientific content. Images help us learn, images grab attention, images explain tough concepts, and inspire.

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Why do we love images so much?

We are very visual creatures. A large percentage of the human brain dedicates itself to visual processing. Our love of images lies with our cognition and ability to pay attending. Images are able to grab our attention easily, nosotros are immediately drawn to them. Think about this web log, for example: did y'all look at the words first, or the image?

We process images at an alarming speed. When we see a motion-picture show, we analyse it within a very short snippet of time, knowing the meaning and scenario within it immediately. The human being brain is able to recognise a familiar object within 100 milliseconds. People tend to recognise familiar faces inside 380 milliseconds, which is pretty speedy.

Bright colors capture our attention because our brains are wired to react to them. Our vision senses are by far our most active of the senses. This may exist thanks to our development. Quick processing of visual information would have saved our ancestors from the assail of a predator or during a hunt for food. A gatherer would need to be able to identify certain shades of reddish berries during their forage. These primitive behaviors come into play even now in our everyday lives. This is ofttimes a fact that advertisers apply to their reward.

Images on social media

Equally Social Media Assistant at BioMed Central, one thing I've realised is how vital images are in my part. A post on social media accompanied past an image is ten times more likely to receive appointment. Visuals are one way of grabbing your audience's attending and gaining interaction, especially on Facebook. With this in mind, you lot can use these images to bulldoze users to research.

And what if yous have limited characters to write with? Twitter only allows users 140 characters of text, which can sometimes get in difficult to convey a complex bulletin. With an image, you can aid explain these tough concepts without taking upwardly too much space. Here's an example:

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Images besides have the potential to become an emotional response from your audience. This is necessary when if y'all want the work you're promoting to have an bear upon on users.

Tumblr

We are seeing plenty of researchers and institutions taking reward of images, peculiarly through the microblogging service, Tumblr. Publishers, institutes, researchers, and schools are using Tumblr to promote scientific findings, with the help of vibrant and appealing images. Tumblr is also a dandy way to bring awareness to the inquiry itself.

There are a selection of brilliant Tumblr blogs for science communication. There'south the Nifty British Bioscience (BBSRC) blog, providing bite-sized bioscience highlights. Y'all can become your daily dose of biomedical images with the MRC's Biomedical Picture of the Day (BPoD) weblog. Meanwhile, Biocanvas, the blog, unleashes the truthful dazzler of science with dazzling photos that could easily be pieces of artwork. Later on something more than unusual? Effort this scientific analogy Tumblr.

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With this in mind, nosotros have started our own BioMed Fundamental Tumblr, for scientific and medical images. We want to show that science can be beautiful.

Images help educate

In a world where nosotros are bombarded by stimuli, we often seek the easiest and well-nigh fluent style of acquiring and learning information. Reading can exist a slow and time-consuming activity. It takes a lot longer to read a long sentence than to analyse a visual scene.

At school we are expected to scour our textbooks and memorise sentences give-and-take-for-word. This isn't always the best tactic. Many of us are visual learners, who memorise content more effectively if it happens to be prototype-based.

This is what makes infographics so pop: they crunch down data and findings and nowadays them in an easy to assimilate manner.

The images, diagrams, and figures in infographics make the learning process more fluid.  Funnily enough, here's an infographic explaining why we all love infographics.

Images assistance tell a story

Sometimes scientific findings, even the important ones, simply don't seem personal to usa as individuals. People may not feel concerned about a certain disease or status because they are not emotionally invested in it. At present, this isn't because we're all stone hearted monsters. It's because sometimes these findings just aren't reaching out to us in the way they ought to.

Images assist us become involved. With images, we are seeing the science, rather than standing on the outskirts. The images assist contribute to the storytelling process that can make science more engaging.

Do-It-Yourself (or ask a friend)

Just considering yous're not an artist, doesn't hateful you're banned from doodling. Art and science are non mutually exclusive. Sketching out a diagram, comic strip, or illustration, tin can help provide even so another channel to explain complex work.

"But I'm terrible at drawing", I hear you say. Well, y'all don't have to be a brilliant artist to assist get your message across. People appreciate custom content, no thing its quality or its execution, as long as the information is reliable.

Thanks to open access and open data, we are able to construct infographics and custom content with raw information. With all these findings being open up to the public, nosotros are able to combine these ingredients and create a visual product that will appoint and brainwash others: another way to put this research to good use.

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Images are a vital function of scientific discipline communication, and shouldn't be cast out in favour of long blocks of text. In order to break down the often complex messages of scientific discipline, we need the assist of visuals.

James Balm is Social Media Assistant for BioMed Central. He writes regularly for the BioMed Central blog  and yous can likewise find him on Twitter – @justbalmy .

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