People remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear…
Unsourced Confidence: high
No primary data found; the trail ends in a roundup, a disowned quote or a circular citation.
- Commonly cited as
- "Dale's Cone: we remember 10% of what we read, 90% of what we do"
- True origin
- D. G. Treichler (Mobil Oil employee), Film and Audio-Visual Communications magazine — No research cited
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 1967
- Data as of
- 1967
- Last checked
- What the source says
D. G. Treichler didn't cite any research
- Method & sample
- None. Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience contains no percentages; the numbers were later grafted onto it.
- Drift between quote and source
- Attribution: numbers from a trade-magazine article credited to Dale or to 'research'
- Interest
- n/a
Safe rephrasing
Don't cite these percentages; Dale's cone has no numbers and no research supports them.
Sources we opened
Machine-readable: /api/claims/people-remember-10-percent-read-20-percent-hear.json · Last checked 2026-10-16