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Instructors should aim to manage intrinsic load by chunking their materials and identifying technical terms in advance. Intrinsic load (also known as “essential processing”) refers to the cognitive effort required to represent the material in working memory and is based on the complexity or difficulty inherent to the learning materials.

Instructors can minimize extraneous load by focusing narrowly on the essential material and eschewing everything that could distract learners (such as needless animations or irrelevant information). While we discuss it in greater depth elsewhere, the underlying premise is that the kind of information we encounter during learning leads to one of three different types of processing in the brain.Įxtraneous load (also known as “extraneous processing”) refers to wasted cognitive effort on material or details that don’t support the learning outcomes. Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning also relies heavily on cognitive load theory. Students, he argues, are not “empty vessels” waiting to be filled up with information but must instead work to synthesize words and pictures into meaningful information that is stored in long-term memory. The cognitive theory of multimedia learning fundamentally argues against a “knowledge transmission” approach to learning in favor of a student-centered “knowledge construction” model. Instead, they need to engage in active cognitive processes, namely identifying and selecting relevant material, organizing it into visual and/or verbal models, and integrating those new models with prior knowledge (p. The active-processing assumption asserts that humans don’t learn by just passively absorbing information. He also indicates that individuals at the higher end of that range may have stronger metacognitive strategies, which allow them to manage their limited cognitive resources more efficiently. This is probably intuitive to anyone who’s sat in a sports bar and tried to watch several games at the same time or tried to listen to the news while having a conversation.Īlthough it’s difficult to nail it down, Mayer suggests that most people can maintain maybe five to seven “chunks” of information in working memory at a given time (p. The limited-capacity assumption suggests that humans have a hard limit on the amount of information they can process at any given moment. The other channel is the auditory–verbal channel, which processes spoken words. The first is the visual–pictorial channel, which processes images seen through the eyes (including words displayed on a screen). The Dual-Channel AssumptionĪccording to Mayer (2009), the dual-channel assumption dictates that “humans possess separate channels for processing visual and auditory information” (p. Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning makes three assumptions about how humans process information: the dual-channel assumption, the limited-capacity assumption, and the active-processing assumption. Let’s begin by discussing Mayer’s assumptions on how people learn. This article introduces the cognitive psychology foundation upon which Mayer’s principles are built and then summarizes each principle.

Carr aural training page 224 how to#

Relying on numerous experiments, he distills his findings into 12 principles that constitute (in part) what he refers to as the “cognitive theory of multimedia learning.” This theory and its principles provide guidance on how to create effective multimedia presentations for learning. Richard Mayer’s seminal book Multimedia Learning details his extensive research on how to structure multimedia materials effectively to maximize learning.