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. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.