The cognitive theory of multimedia learning: what it is and what it proposes

When we talk about the lifelong lessons of school, institute or any other educational level, we all agree that a A book with pictures or a documentary in class was something much more enjoyable than reading a few simple notes in which only words came out and more words.

It is not that an image is worth a thousand words, but rather that it seems that images combined with words, read or heard, they make the information to be learned more powerful, easier assimilable.

This is what the cognitive theory of multimedia learning defends, in which it is argued that the combination of information that activates the verbal and the visual helps us to carry out deeper learning. Let's see it next.

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What is the cognitive theory of multimedia learning?

When producing multimedia content for educational purposes, all kinds of professionals who know how to design them and know how the human mind works must participate. Both pedagogues and psychologists, designers, illustrators, programmers and communication scientists should be responsible for the design of these resources since

multimedia, in itself, will not encourage learning, but the way it is designed and results in a better acquisition of the content taught.

The designer, whatever the field, must know how to take advantage of new technologies and adapt the contents in such a way that through combination of different visual and auditory elements support is given to the didactic objectives that are to be acquired in the curriculum academic. The planning and treatment of information is something that must be very careful, since converting them into multimedia elements is not an easy task and requires time and effort to be invested.

Taking all this into account, we fully enter with the central premise of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, a model in which argues that certain information is learned more deeply when it is presented in the form of words and images rather than with just words. That is, by transforming the classic content, traditionally in written format, into something that has visual or auditory support, a better learning of it is acquired.

This idea comes from the hand of Richard Mayer in 2005, which proposes the cognitive theory of multimedia learning based on the idea that there are three types of storage in memory (sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory) and, furthermore, argues that individuals have two separate channels for processing information, one for verbal material and the other for visual. Each channel can only process a small amount of information at a time, being able to support it by processing content presented in two different and complementary ways.

Meaningful learning from a multimedia element is the result of the learner's activity when he is presented with information that activates the two channels, building ordered and integrated knowledge. As working memory has a rather limited cognitive load, in case of presenting too many elements of the same type at the same time can overload it, exceeding the processing capacity and causing some of that content to be unsatisfactory processed. Thus, to reduce its load it is beneficial to activate two different channels a little instead of just one and in excess.

Richard Mayer's multimedia learning

Within the cognitive theory of multimedia learning Richard Mater argues that, to reduce cognitive load of the working memory when presenting content, it is appropriate to present it in multimedia format, that is, activating the two ways of receiving information: visual and verbal. His principles about multimedia learning are directly related to the ideas that emanate from John Sweller's cognitive load theory.

It is worth highlighting the idea of ​​what is understood by multimedia content. We refer to multimedia content when certain information is presented, as may well be a presentation or communication, which includes words and images aimed at promoting learnings. Starting from this idea and based on his scientific research, Mayer formulated up to eleven different principles that serve as a guide when it comes to design multimedia materials that focus on facilitating learning, whether you have prior knowledge related to the new information or but.

Thus, from the cognitive theory of learning it is argued that understanding how the human mind of a learner processes information, it will be possible to optimize the acquisition of a certain content to the maximum. Taking this into account, guides can be designed for the management and design of multimedia content, with the intention that the student has more ease in building mental schemas on new content and automate and introduce them into long-term memory.

The three foundations of the theory

There are three foundations of the theory that justify its central premise, arguing that more is learned deeply a certain content when it is presented in the form of a combination of words with images.

1. Pictures and words are not equivalent

The saying that a picture equals a thousand words is not true. The images and words are neither equivalent nor provide the same information, but rather complement each other. Through words we can better understand an image, and through images we can get a better idea and better understand what is exposed in a text.

2. Verbal and visual information are processed through different channels

As we have already suggested, verbal or auditory information and visual or pictorial information are retained and processed in different channels. The fact of processing the information in more than one channel gives us advantages in capacity, encoding in our memory and recovery. In this way, the memory and its storage in long-term memory are strengthened.

3. Integrating words and pictures produces deeper learning

Integrate a word accompanied by an image or a verbal representation with a pictorial into working memory involves some cognitive effort and processing. At the same time, it is easier to relate this new information with previous learning, which gives more learning insights that remain in long-term memory and can be applied in solving problems in others contexts.

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Multimedia learning and memory model

As we said, the model starts from the idea that our brain works with two information processing systems, one for the visual material and the other for the verbal one. The advantage of using these two channels is not something quantitative, but rather qualitative since, as we have mentioned before, visual and auditory information complement each other, are not substituted or equivalents. Deep understanding occurs when the learner can build meaningful connections between verbal and visual representations.

When a multimedia material is presented, the information received in the form of words will be heard by the ears or read by the eyes, while the images will be seen by the eyes. In both cases the new information will first pass through sensory memory, where it will be briefly retained in the form of visual (images) and auditory (sounds) stimuli.

In working memory the individual will carry out the main activity of multimedia learning, since it is the space of our memory where we will process the new information while we keep it conscious. This memory has a very limited capacity and, as we have mentioned, it tends to become overloaded. On the other hand, long-term memory has almost no limits and, when information is deeply processed, it ends up being stored in this last space.

In the working memory, the selection of sounds and images will be made and the information will be organized transforming it into representations coherent mental models, that is, we will make a verbal mental model and a pictorial mental model based on what we have read, heard and viewed. The information will be given meaning by integrating the visual representations with the verbal ones and relating them with knowledge that is had about previous data. As we can understand from all this, people are not passive recipients of new content, but we actively process it.

Taking all this into account, we can end up summarizing this point in the three assumptions below.

1. Dual channel assumption

This model assumes that people process information in two separate channels, one being that of auditory or verbal information and the other that of visual or pictorial information.

2. Limited capacity assumption

The two channels in the above assumption are stated to have limited capacity. People's working memory can retain a limited number of words and pictures at the same time.

3. Active Processing Assumption

It is argued that people are actively involved in learning attending to new relevant incoming information. This selected information is organized into coherent mental representations and such representations are integrated with other prior knowledge.

The 11 principles of multimedia learning

Having seen in depth the entire cognitive theory of multimedia learning, we finally go on to see the eleven principles to be taken into account when designing multimedia material to optimize the learning. These are some principles that should be considered in every classroom and course that is considered adapted to the 21st century, especially if you want to take full advantage of new technologies and multimedia and online resources.

1. Multimedia principle

People learn best when the contents are displayed in image format combined with text instead of just wordsThis principle being the main premise of the entire cognitive theory of multimedia learning.

2. Contiguity principle

We learn best when the images and words that refer to the same content are located nearby the one of the other.

3. Principle of temporality

People learn better when words and their corresponding images are displayed on the screen simultaneously.

4. Principle of modality

People learn better when the multimedia content is in the mode of images with narration than images with text.

5. Redundancy principle

We learn better when the images used are explained either through a narration or through text, but not with both modalities at the same time. In other words, presenting an image, a text and narrating it is rather a waste of time and resources, since its effect is neither cumulative nor multiplicative beyond the use of two supports.

6. Consistency principle

People learn better when images, words or sounds that are not directly related to the content to be taught are removed from the screen.

7. Signaling principle

People learn better when they are added signs that indicate where we should pay our attention.

8. Segmentation principle

We learn best when the contents that are presented to us are divided into small sections and when you can freely and easily navigate through them.

9. Pre-workout principle

We learn better when we are pre-trained in the key concepts to be explained before seeing the developed content. Namely, It is better that we briefly introduce ourselves or make us an “abstract” of what we are going to see before starting with the agenda itself, giving us the opportunity to recall prior knowledge before the session, bring it to working memory and relate it while explaining the lesson.

10. Personalization principle

When presenting a multimedia material, both in text format with image and narration type with image, it is better present them with a close and familiar tone; thus more is learned than when the tone is too formal.

11. Voice principle

If the chosen modality is an image with a listened-to narration, the people we learn best when using a human voice on digital resources rather than one created by software that reads robotic audio text.

Bibliographic references:

• Andrade-Lotero, Luis Alejandro (2012) Theory of cognitive load, multimedia design and learning: a state of the art Magis. International Journal of Research in Education, 5 (10), 75-92.