Transforming Intuitive Illiteracy: Understanding the Effects of the Unconscious Mind on Image Meaning, Image Consumption, and Behavior

New advances in cognitive neuroscience that track visual messages through the brain indicate that media imagery stimulates intuitive, unconscious cognitive motivators that shape our perceptions of reality and directly guide our behavior. This cognitive synthesis does not distinguish between mediated and real imagery and the cognition and the motivated behavior occur before the rational mind receives the neural signal. Because of the rational bias of our educational system, most of us still approach media communication from an intuitively illiterate perspectives. But, in today’s visual culture, visually based, intuitive literacy has become a prerequisite to the successful negotiation of culture as an educated person. This article explores the theoretical foundations of intuitive, visual literacy and presents processes that educators can use to teach intuitive literacy so that students can better negotiate the world and guide their own behavior in ways that generate and sustain quality and integrity in their lives.