Why visual tools improve your thinking: Guy Claxton

Our third argument takes us nearer a practical conclusion. Guy Claxton has written extensively for several decades about what you could call the ‘inside story’ of learning. Here is his account of how to overcome the limitations of working memory.

Claxton tells us that the cognitive load involved in learning is reduced by using artefacts. Space is used experientially not just metaphorically. As a result mental RAM is released for more productive thinking.
“The way we arrange or manipulate things in space can make our cognitive lives easier. Scrabble–players and anagram–solvers use real space to support their thinking. By physically ordering and reordering the letters, different possibilities are encouraged to make themselves known.”
References: Wise Up (1999) Bloomsbury