Too Much Information!

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Cognitive capacity is the amount of processing through audio and visual channels of working memory (Mayer & Fiorella, 2021). Essential overload (information overload) occurs when too much necessary information is presented too quickly.

Dynamic media, such as animations (Castro-Alonso & Sweller, 2021) and podcasts that present transient information, are especially liable to cause essential overload (e.g. narrating a lot of complex information at a fast pace that exceeds the learner’s cognitive capacity) (Mayer & Fiorella, 2021). Content with many symbols, much interactivity, and complex or lengthy information are perhaps better presented in static than dynamic formats (Jiang & Sweller, 2021). Dynamic media are suggested for shorter pieces of information (Jiang & Sweller, 2021).

Several principles of multimedia learning have been proposed to remediate essential overload.

Modality principle. Visual channel overload may be caused by animations presented concurrently with written text at a fast pace (Mayer & Fiorella, 2021). Thus, some of the demands to the visual channel may be offloaded onto the auditory channel by presenting words as speech rather than written text (Mayer & Fiorella, 2021). Although, keywords and vocabulary may be emphasized by presenting them as both spoken and written (Castro-Alonso & Sweller, 2021).

Segmenting principle. Divide the course material into learner-paced sections rather than a continuous unit. However, segments that are too short may be irritating (Mayer & Fiorella, 2021).For example, a 140-s narration about lightning can be divided into roughly 10-s segments, with each segment speaking a few sentences (Mayer & Chandler, 2001).Offer buttons for “pause,” “repeat,” “back,” “continue,” or even a slider bar to allow students to move to the next segment when they are ready (Mayer & Fiorella, 2021). Alternatively, have a table of contents in a side menu so that students can skip to particular segments of the lesson.

Pretraining principle. Start by introducing the main concepts of the lesson (e.g. names or vocabulary of key aspects) (Mayer & Fiorella, 2021) before delving into the details. Students could learn about the names and parts of a braking system individually before seeing how the braking system works as a whole (Mayer et al., 2002). The pretraining principle can be incorporated into an interactive, learner-paced medium by allowing students to decide on which part of the braking system they would like to click and see (Mayer & Fiorella, 2021).

Summary

  • A huge quantity of information delivered too quickly can be overwhelming.
  • Dynamic media may be suitable for short segments of information, but long, complex information may be better in static formats.
  • Share the information between audio and visual channels to prevent overloading a single channel.
  • Divide information into learner-paced segments or introduce the basics of a lesson before going into details.

Media Attributions

The featured image was created by Jung-Lynn Jonathan Yang under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Castro-Alonso, J. C., & Sweller, J. (2021). The modality principle in multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer & L. Fiorella (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 261–267). Cambridge University Press.

Jiang, D., & Sweller, J. (2021). The transient information principle in multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer & L. Fiorella (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 268–274). Cambridge University Press.

Mayer, R. E., & Chandler, P. (2001). When learning is just a click away: Does simple user interaction foster deeper understanding of multimedia messages? Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(2), 390–397. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.93.2.390

Mayer, R. E., & Fiorella, L. (2021). Principles for managing essential processing in multimedia learning: Segmenting, pre-training, and modality principles. In R. E. Mayer & L. Fiorella (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 243–260). Cambridge University Press.

Mayer, R. E., Mathias, A., & Wetzell, K. (2002). Fostering understanding of multimedia messages through pre-training: Evidence for a two-stage theory of mental model construction. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8(3), 147–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-898X.8.3.147