The Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity Principle in Multimedia Learning

Abstract

Effective use of the working memory system is critical for successful learning, and this assumption has motivated much of the work on multimedia instruction. Interestingly, the limited capacity of human working memory has been invoked as part of explanations for both advantages and disadvantages of multimedia learning in comparison with learning from text or pictures alone. This chapter reviews several lines of reasoning that have guided explorations of the role of working memory in multimedia learning, including approaches that have emphasized the modality-specifi c buffer system and the potential for overloading the limited resources that are available to learners; as well as a newer approach that considers working memory capacity as an individual differences variable representing attentional control.

Reading an Analogy Can Cause the Illusion of Comprehension

“…The idea behind the seductive details effect is that interesting information competes with more relevant information for readers' attention. Although seductive details do tend to be rated as more interesting to readers (Hidi & Anderson, 1992), the presence of interesting sections of text or images have been shown to harm readers' retention of the main ideas of the text (Harp & Mayer, 1998;Sanchez & Wiley, 2006;Wiley, Sanchez, & Jaeger, 2014). The decrement in performance due to the presence of an analogy in this study is consistent with this finding.…”

State‐of‐the‐Art Research into Multimedia Learning: A Commentary on Mayer's Handbook of Multimedia Learning

“…Wiley, Sanchez, and Jaeger () report that WMC can predict learning from illustrated text. They argue that greater WMC allows a reader to select and focus on specific information, as well as integrate and develop overall understanding.…”

Investigating the Effects of Modality and Multimedia on the Learning Performance of College Students With Dyslexia

“…Consequently, empirical findings from these studies have provided implications on how to optimize multimedia materials for typical learners, but educational researchers and practitioners have little understanding of how individual differences such as dyslexia moderate learning with multimedia. In fact, only one chapter in the latest edition of the Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2014a) explicitly focuses on the issue of individual differences in multimedia instruction (Wiley, Sanchez, & Jaeger, 2014), and none focuses on the effects of multimedia in populations with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.…”