Visual Presentations in Multimedia Learning: Conditions that Overload Visual Working Memory

Abstract

How should we design visual presentations to explain how a complex system works? One promising approach involves multimedia presentation of explanations in visual and verbal formats, such as presenting a computer-generated animation synchronized with narration or on-screen text. In a review of three studies, we found evidence that presenting a verbal explanation of how a system works with an animation does not insure that students will understand the explanation unless research-based cognitive principles are applied to the design. The first two studies revealed a split-attention effect, in which students learned better when the instructional material did not require them to split their attention between multiple visual sources of information. The third study, revealed a modality effect, in which students learned better when verbal input was presented auditorily as speech rather than visually as text. The results support two cognitive principles of multimedia learning.