The brain processing that a person undergoes to understand a specific thing is called cognitive load. The cognitive load is subject to various factors such as person, medium of expression, language of instruction, prior experience, the quantity of information, and time duration given to learn the issue.
Person: Cognitive Load differs from person to person according to his age group, educational qualification, IQ and mental and sensual abilities.
Language of instruction: Cognitive Load differs depending on language of instruction. If language of instruction is the native language of the audience, they experience less cognitive load. Otherwise, they experience more cognitive load.
Medium of expression: Cognitive Load differs depending on medium of expression. Listening creates less cognitive load than reading and watching/viewing creates less cognitive load than listening. Practical experience reduces the load almost to the maximum possible extent.
Language of instruction: If the language of instruction is the native language or well known language, the audience feel less cognitive load. Otherwise, they have to spend additional time on understanding the language in addition to the time they spend to understand the instruction.
Amount of time: When a person is supposed to learn a particular thing, he feels more cognitive load. When he is given more time to learn the same thing, he feels less cognitive load.
Quantity of instruction: The more a person has to learn in a specified time, the more cognitive load he feels and vice versa.
Types of Cognitive Load
There are three types of cognitive load: intrinsic cognitive load, germane cognitive load, and extraneous cognitive load.
Intrinsic cognitive load: It is the inherent difficulty associated with an instruction. For example, even to calculate a simple addition of 2 and 2, a person has to undergo certain amount of brain processing. It cannot be reduced by an instructor.
Extraneous cognitive load: It is generated by the style of presentation of information. An instructional designer can reduce it by presenting the information in an effective manner.
For example, a teacher is supposed to explain his students about “Circle”. If the teacher delivers a lecture, defining in different ways what a circle is, it becomes very difficult for the students to understand what a circle is. If the teacher displays an image of a circle and then explains about it, students feel it easy to understand what a circle is. Here, visual medium is better than verbal medium and reduces the extraneous cognitive load of the concept.
It does not load the learner with unnecessary information. Extraneous cognitive load can be reduced or completely avoided while intrinsic cognitive load is a natural one and cannot be avoided. In fact, the theory of Cognitive Load is primarily concentrated on the reduction of extraneous cognitive load.
Germane cognitive load: It is an interesting theory stating that certain amount of cognitive load is actually a good thing as it creates schemas or mental models that enable the audience to learn something in more efficient manner in the future. It deals with motivation methods and techniques.
Most of the cognitive load researchers are of an opinion that germane cognitive load should be increased as it results in more efficient learning. Germane cognitive load deals only with the characteristics of learner and the memory that the learner uses to deal with the intrinsic cognitive load.
Written by: S.Chandrashekara Reddy
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