Red italic = My comments and reflections
Yellow highlight = key points/information
When writing I was reading into learning and information retention I was referring to processing information as in some articles I had read they mentioned 'cognitive load' and I did more research into these to develop a well rounded and informed discussion within the essay
Cognitive Load Theory Research
Working memory can generally hold between five and nine items (or chunks) of information at any one time.
When your brain processes information, it categorizes that information and moves it into long-term memory, where it is stored in knowledge structures called "schemas." These organize information according to how you use it.
Cognitive Load Theory was developed by John Sweller. He published a paper on the subject in the journal Cognitive Science in 1988.
"Cognitive load" relates to the amount of information that working memory can hold at one time. Sweller said that, since working memory has a limited capacity, instructional methods should avoid overloading it with additional activities that don't directly contribute to learning.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/cognitive-load-theory.htm
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(Reese et al, 2016)
Cognitive load theory identifies the conscious processes of thinking as working memory.
Working memory has limited capacity, with a maximum duration of about 20 s (Paas & Sweller, 2012), ability to hold (e.g., recall a list of digits) about seven chunks of information (Miller, 1956), and with a maximum concurrent processing limit of two to four chunks of information (Paas & Sweller, 2012; Sweller et al., 1998). Processing activities would include “organizing, contrasting, comparing,” and other manners of working on information (Sweller et al., 1998, p. 252) such as problem-solving (Paas & Sweller, 2012).
- The idea of holding 'chunks' relates to miller's 1958 chunking theory, supports use of small sections of text. Could discuss together within essay, or make sure to develop a link.
- Works well with practical in terms of content being in small cohesive sets of text, the structure being separated into information relevant to that section works well.
Cognitive load theory identifies three types of load: Intrinsic cognitive load is indigenous to the to-be-learned information and task. Unnecessary information or activities, such as noise or nongermane activity or stimuli, add extraneous cognitive load. Nongermane instructional activities are defined as those that do not scaffold the learner to construct relevant and viable schemata. Germane cognitive load scaffolds the learner to construct viable and relevant schemata.
Reese, D., Pawluk, D., Taylor, C. (2016) 'Engaging Learners Through Rational Design of Multisensory Effects' in Tettegah, S., and Noble, S. (2016) Emotions, Technology, and Design, pp.103-127
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/cognitive-load-theory
(Engaging Learners Through Rational Design of Multisensory Effects, Debbie Denise Reese, ... Curtis R. Taylor, in Emotions, Technology, and Design, 2016)
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(Mestre, 2012)
According to cognitive load theory, short-term or working memory has a limited capacity and can only handle so much information effectively at one time. If a person’s working memory is overloaded, that person may not be able to process anything well, thus leading to poor understanding, retention, and learning (Sweller, 1988, 1994, 1999, 2011; Chandler and Sweller, 1991, 1992, 1996; Mayer and Moreno, 2003; Nguyen and Clark, 2005; van Merrienboer and Sweller, 2005).
- Really important point, think about this in relation to imagery, and colour how to make sure practical doesn't overload the brain.
- Design choices need to be handled carefully to avoid overloading. Bear in mind when working on project further.
The load on working memory needs to be minimized in each of these areas so that people can process information more effectively and learn better.
Mestre, L. (2012) 'Pedagogical Considerations for Tutorials' in Mestre, L. (2016) Designing Effective Library Tutorials. Elsevier Science. pp. 141-169
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/cognitive-load-theory
(Pedagogical considerations for tutorials, Lori S. Mestre, in Designing Effective Library Tutorials, 2012
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(Jabr, 2013) Already researched as reference
"The ease with which you can find out the beginning, end and everything inbetween and the constant connection to your path, your progress in the text, might be some way of making it less taxing cognitively, so you have more free capacity for comprehension,"
- Supports the importance of visual hierarchy and navigation for the reduction of cognitive load.
Like many cognitive abilities, working memory is a finite resource that diminishes with exertion.
- Make sure no excess cognition is being spent on unnecessary places
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(Godwin et al, 2019)
Placing text and illustrations in close proximity may unintentionally
create attentional competition between these sources of
information, hampering reading comprehension. Such
attentional competition may be particularly disadvantageous
when illustrations contain irrelevant information.
- Ensuring all imagery used is appropriate to the text, think about this in terms of photographs, are they needed?
- How do the illustrations of road crossing impact the audience? Are they ways they can be simplified to communicate the same themes but in a more streamlined way?
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(Guo et al, 2020)
Adding concreteness (e.g., graphics) enriches mental representations by adding specificity. Additionally, graphics can prompt learners to store information in two forms (i.e., visual and verbal), which reduces cognitive overload and aids memory by having two pathways to the same information. – Dual Coding Theory
Due to cognitive load, we predicted that older readers would benefit more from graphics.
Our findings indicate that there is not a clear benefit regarding specific forms of graphics. This suggests that the optimum format relies on the alignment between the graphical design and the cognitive tasks.
- Images help clarify thoughts about the text we just read, they solidify understanding and make the text more clear.
- How will the structure of the publication support image inclusion? Need to start thinking about this more in practical.
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(Lai, and Newby, 2020)
A second key assumption is based on cognitive load theory which focuses on the
limited capacity of working memory (Paas, Renkl & Sweller, 2003). Both verbal and visual information processing channels are severely limited and thus if too many words or too complex a picture are to be processed within their respective channels, overload can be created, “in which the learner’s intended cognitive processing exceeds the learner’s available cognitive capacity” (Mayer and Moreno, 2003, p. 43).
- Again supporting the sensitivity in which images need to be addressed.
- Ensure they're relevant, ensure they have a purpose, ensure they're not unnecessarily complicated.
Mayer, R. and Moreno, R., 2003. Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), pp.43-52.
http://www.theurbanclimatologist.com/uploads/4/4/2/5/44250401/mayermoreno2003reducingcognitiveoverload.pdf
In short, cognitive construction depends on the cognitive processing of the learner during learning” (Mayer & Moreno, 2002, p. 111). This assumption indicates that instructional graphics will better enhance learning when they offer information and guidance to the learner for creating the needed structure (Mayer, 2001).
cognitive load can be reduced as attention is directed to the significant elements and away from those items of less importance.
- Supports visual cueing as a way to direct attention to the most improtant information.
- What does this mean for the practical as all body text is of equal importance? Would mean hierarchy for navigation is key.
To a point, increased levels of cognitive processing facilitates learning; however, if the demands on cognitive load become too great, results may begin to indicate a lessening of the positive impact for self-generated visuals.
In such a case, it would be predicted that those within the gradient static graphics group would have less demanding levels of cognitive load as they were to view each static graphic independently and did not have to hold all graphics in memory at the same time.
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(Mayer, Hegarty, Mayer, and Campbell, 2005)
If too much attention is allocated to extraneous processing, there may not be enough remaining attention for intrinsic and germane processing (such as trying to make sense of the presented explanation). On the basis of this analysis, there are two complementary explanations for why learning from static illustrations and printed text could lead to deeper learning than learning from animation and narration: (a) less load from extraneous and intrinsic processing and (b) more germane processing.
- When attention is being used to process the design of the page it isn't being used to process the content. Supports the idea that good design is often invisible.
They help to show concisely that there was support for the static media hypothesis—that is, some evidence that people engage in less extraneous processing and therefore are able to engage in deeper cognitive processing when they learn from static illustrations and text rather than the dynamic animations and commentaries.
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(Thomas, 2014)
Imagery potentiates recall of verbal material because when a word evokes an associated image (either spontaneously, or through deliberate effort) two separate but linked memory traces are laid down, one in each of the memory stores.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/theories-memory.html
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(Carey, 2011)
“The reason that the unusual fonts are effective is that it causes us to think more deeply about the material,”
- Proposes the issue that when an individual thinks deeply about the design they think deeply about the material. But relating this to Mayer et al 2005 above this would mean less cognitive energy is left for understanding the content.
“But we are capable of thinking deeply without being subjected to unusual fonts. Think of it this way, you can’t skim material in a hard to read font, so putting text in a hard-to-read font will force you to read more carefully.” - Daniel M. Oppenheimer
Then again, so will raw effort, he and other researchers said.
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(Moreno and Mayer, 1999)
each working memory store has a limited capacity, consistent with Sweller's [3, 12, 13] cognitive load theory; connections can be made only if corresponding pictorial and verbal information is in working memory at the same time, corresponding to referential connections in Paivio's [4, 11] dual-coding theory.
When working memory becomes overloaded, the opportunities for active cognitive processing are reduced.
- Again relates to point I made above, how would this impact the design of the publication? Would need to ensure all content has a purpose on the page, but don't want to forget about aesthetics and developing an enjoyable reading experience.
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(Thalmann at al, 2019)
If chunks reduce the load on WM independently of their size, recall accuracy of new lists should not differ as a function of chunk size.
This finding supports the hypothesis that chunks reduce the load on WM.
Chunks reduce the load on WM, thereby improving memory for other information maintained concurrently
- Again chunks and working memory supporting each other, only supports the small sections of body text used in design further.
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(Dressler, 2019)
Previous research has shown that more cognitive engagement leads to deeper processing, which helps in encoding and retrieval (Craik & Tulving, 1975). Since decoding difficult font requires more cognitive engagement and attentional resources, the extra attention devoted to reading the difficult font may have been what led to previous findings.
According to Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer, and Caighan (2010), it is disfluency, the cognitive experience of difficulty associated with cognitive operations, that leads to deeper processing and better memory.
Comprehension scores were higher in Times New Roman than in Haettenschweiler. Therefore, it can be concluded that Times New Roman is, overall, a better font for increased reading comprehension and memory in extended text.
- What type is most appropriate? This could become an argument within text but would need to have a resolution. Something to discuss with Simon?
- Can bring in Sans Forgetica into this, an example of problematic but also potentially successful type tackling issues of cognitive load.
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(Hou et al, 2017)
Thus, a screen might impose additional cognitive
load to control the reading medium, leaving less cognitive capacity to deal with the text itself (Wastlund, Reinikka, Norlander, & Archer, 2005; Mayes, Sims, & Koonce, 2001). In contrast, a paper book is a physically and functionally unitary object. The interaction with paper books is so natural, intuitive, and immediate that readers cease to cognitively process it; therefore, it has lower cognitive demands.
- Publications naturally demand less of the brain as we are in tune to how they function.
-Really interesting point!
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