Mind maps (or similar concepts) have been used for centuries, for learning, brainstorming, visual thinking and problem solving by educators, psychologists and people in general. People have been using image-centered radial graphic organization techniques referred to variably as mental or generic mind maps for some areas. The claim of the origin of the mind maps has been made by a British popular psychology author, Tony Buzon. He argues that "traditional" outlines rely on the reader to scan left to right and top to bottom, whilst what actually happens is that the brain will scan the entire page in a non-linear fashion. He also used popular assumptions about the cerebral hemispheres in order to promote the exclusive use of mind mapping over other forms of note taking. In our studies we examined the learning behaviour of mentally retarded children at the age from 12 to 16 at special schools. We found that the mind mapping technique had an impact on the ability to recall. This improvement was robust after some weeks for those in the mind map group. As a result of our studies the students - on the one hand - said it was both more pleasure and motivation to learn at school when using this method and - on the other one - the teachers confirmed that there were no emotional problems and behaviour deviation in the student's learning process.

We found that the mind mapping technique led to the improvement of the ability to recall compared to children not using this method.