Visuospatial memory and phonological loop in learning from multimedia

Abstract

The dual-task paradigm was used to show how visuospatial working memory and the phonological loop are involved in processing scientific texts and illustrations presented via computer. In experiment 1, two presentation formats were compared: text-only and text-with-illustrations. With a concurrent tapping task, the beneficial effect of illustrations disappeared, while a concurrent articulatory task impaired performance similarly in both presentation formats. An analysis of individual differences revealed that this pattern of results was present in high, but not low spatial span subjects. These results support the selective involvement of visuospatial working memory in processing illustrated texts. In Experiment 2, the text-only presentation format was compared to an illustrations-only format. The concurrent articulatory task selectively impaired text-only processing, compared with processing illustrations-only. In addition, this pattern of results was found for high, but not low digit span subjects. These results suggest that individual differences define the extent to which the two subsystems of working memory are involved in learning from multimedia. These two subsystems would be mainly involved in the maintenance of a visual trace of illustrations and of a verbatim representation of linguistic information respectively, these representations being the basis for higher-level comprehension processes.

Learning procedures: the role of working memory in multimedia learning experiences

“…Also as predicted, based on the importance of spatial information for object assembly, performance on pictures alone exceeded that based on text alone. This finding contrasts with some previous work demonstrating a slight advantage of text relative to pictures (Gyselinck et al, 2002). However, the difference between Gyselinck et al (2002) and our findings may be explained as a function of informational consistency between text and pictures.…”

“…This finding contrasts with some previous work demonstrating a slight advantage of text relative to pictures (Gyselinck et al, 2002). However, the difference between Gyselinck et al (2002) and our findings may be explained as a function of informational consistency between text and pictures. That is, while Gyselinck and colleagues' multimedia presentations did not contain informational consistency across formats, the multimedia stimuli used in the present experiments were developed with a greater degree of informational equivalence.…”

“…An analogous pattern was revealed with the visuospatial (interfering with picture processing) and central-visuospatial (interfering with multimedia processing) tasks. The findings for the subsystem tasks are in line with Mayer's (1997) multimedia theory, Baddeley's (1992Baddeley's ( , 2002 working memory model, and previous findings reported by Gyselinck et al (2002). According to this work, articulatory suppression should selectively interfere with phonological resources, decreasing the subsequent recall and use of memories acquired during text-only, but not picture-only, and perhaps not multimedia experiences.…”

Secondary-Task Effects on Learning With Multimedia: An Investigation Through Eye-Movement Analysis

“……”

The effects of verbal and spatial interference in the encoding and retrieval of spatial and nonspatial texts

“…Comparisons of the involvement of the two components in spatial text encoding and retrieval revealed that VSWM had a prominent role. These results confirmed those obtained by De Beni et al (2005) and Gyselinck et al (2000Gyselinck et al ( , 2002 for spatial text processing, and extended the role of VSWM to retrieval.…”