As well possessing as the ability to see while listening, we evolved to be able to imagine scenes while listening, as we do when we listen to a radio play or story.

An effective way to utilise this ability is to turn the projector to ‘no-show’ when telling a story or describing a scene.  This technique allows learners to mentally create images without interference from a screen, and the ‘imagination effect’ ensures the message is more likely to ‘stick’[1].

Here a lecturer uses metaphors that would be difficult to draw or find in an online image search, but which can easily be imagined and understood by those listening.

[1] Johnson, M. K., & Raye, C. L. (1981). Reality monitoring. Psychological Review, 88(1), 67-85.