Which Tools in Multimedia Are Best for Learning Outcomes? A Study Grounded in Cognitive Load Structures

The main objective of this study is to investigate the importance of three compositions in multimedia for learning outcomes (LOs) in relation to individual differences in short-term memory (STM) capacity. The study is based on a survey of 378 individuals at the bachelor level (military officers, teachers, and psychology students). The LOs of three different multimedia compositions (means) were tested. This applied to individuals with low, medium, and high STM capacity. The results show that the successive presentation (Type II) of learning materials through multiple representation forms/channels (speech, pictures, and screen text/labels) provides a better LO than just speech (Type I) and simultaneous presentation (Type III). Overall, visual and verbal channel capacities did not contribute to the LO in any of the three tools tested, but some specific STM capacity types or substructures (visual and verbal progressive capacities) and non-verbal (RAPM) types have significance, particularly in exploiting successive presentation (Type II) for learning. Although the tools used in the multimedia educational material had a low cognitive load, the individuals with low capacity learned relatively less than the individuals with higher capacity. A symbolic form of expression was introduced concerning the relationship between cognitive load structure (CLS) and LOs through various tools in multimedia as an aid in the theoretical and empirical analyses. This is referred to as the CLS-LO formula. The main assumption of this study, based on previous empirical and theoretical ones, is that the relationship between CLS and LO is expressed with the following CLS-LO formula: CLSTypeIII>CLSTypeII>CLSTypeI→LOTypeIII>LOTypeI>LOTypeII. Based on this study, the relationship became: CLSTypeIII>CLSTypeI>CLSTypeII→LOTypeII>LOTypeI=LOTypeIII. This basic research study is primarily a contribution to understanding underlying cognitive processes in STM and their importance for learning in multimodal forms compared with analogue text. The findings will also be relevant as a basis for performance analysis and decision-making under high information pressure, risk, and unpredictable conditions.

Effects of "chained" study on spontaneous relational discovery

Prior knowledge of relational structure allows people to quickly make sense of and respond to new experiences. When awareness of such structure is not necessary to support learning, however, it is unclear when and why individuals “spontaneously discover” an underlying relational schema. The present study examines the determinants of such discovery in discrimination-based transitive inference (TI), whereby people learn about a hierarchy of interrelated premises and are tested on their ability to draw inferences that bridge studied associations. Experiencing “chained” sequences of overlapping premises during training was predicted to facilitate the discovery of relational structure. Among individuals without prior knowledge of the hierarchy, chaining improved relational learning and was most likely to result in explicit awareness of the underlying relations between items. These findings add to growing evidence that the temporal dynamics of training, including successive presentation of overlapping associations, are key to understanding spontaneous relational discovery during learning.

Left lateral occipito-temporal cortex encodes compatibility between hands and tools: an fMRI adaptation study

Previous work has demonstrated that a region of the extrastriate visual cortex, the left lateral occipito-temporal cortex, contains a region that is activated by both images of human hands and manual tools. The current paper examined the functional significance of this observation. A functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) adaptation paradigm was used to investigate the hypothesis that this region is selective for the functional compatibility of hands and tools. The present results suggest that this region is indeed involved in matching compatible hands postures with tools for their skilled and effective use, with significant adaptation with successive presentation of compatible hands and tools. It is proposed that this region of the extrastriate visual cortex represents a crucial node within a much wider cortical network that supports skilled tool use in humans. The present results are discussed in terms of their implication for our understanding of the organization of the visual brain.

Is Elapsing Time Really Recoded Into Spatial Linear Representation in Working Memory?

A growing body of evidence suggested that elapsing time is tightly associated with space in a specific way (e.g., Spatial Temporal Association of Response Codes or STARC effect). However, existing findings cannot justify a hypothesis that elapsing time is recoded directly into a spatial linear representation in working memory. The present study addresses this fundamental question by using three modified STARC-related working memory paradigms. In different experiments, participants were asked to give order judgment, order-irrelevant STM recognition judgment, or motor-related free-choice judgment, immediately after successive presentation of a set of disparate stimuli. Results show that responses to early stimuli were faster or more often with the left key and responses to late stimuli were faster or more often with the right key. These findings clearly support the hypothesis that elapsing time is directly and automatically recoded into a spatial linear representation in working memory.

INDIVIDUALŪS VIENU METU IR NUOSEKLIAI PATEIKIAMŲ VAIZDŲ TAPATUMO VERTINIMO SKIRTUMAI

Nustatyta, kad atliekant tapatumo vertinimo užduotį, kai reikia atsakyti, ar keli pateikti stimulai yra vienodi (tapatūs), ar skirtingi, tiriamieji gali naudoti stimulų sulyginimo strategiją – holistinę arba analitinę. Šiame tyrime bandyta nustatyti, ar tokių individualių skirtumų pasireiškimas gali priklausyti nuo stimulų pateikimo metodo – nuoseklaus arba vienalaikio. Atlikti psichofizikiniai tapatumo vertinimo tyrimai, kuriuose įvairaus tarpusavio panašumo laipsnio netaisyklingi daugiakampiai buvo pateikiami poromis vienu metu arba nuosekliai. Nuoseklaus figūrų pateikimo atveju tiriamieji išsiskyrė į dvi grupes: daugumai tiriamųjų figūrų tapatumo vertinimas tiesiškai priklausė nuo jų tarpusavio panašumo – didėjant figūrų panašumui ilgėjo reakcijos laikas ir daugėjo klaidų; kitų tiriamųjų tapatumo vertinimas nepriklausė nuo figūrų panašumo laipsnio. Vienalaikio pateikimo atveju tiriamieji aiškiai neišsiskyrė pagal užduoties atlikimo strategiją. Praktika vienalaikio stimulų pateikimo atveju ir tarpstimulinis intervalas nuoseklaus stimulų pateikimo atveju neturėjo įtakos figūrų tapatumo vertinimo greičio priklausomybei nuo jų tarpusavio panašumo laipsnio, bet sąlygojo bendrą reakcijos laiko sutrumpėjimą praktikos metu ir pailgėjimą, ilgėjant tarpstimuliniam intervalui tarp pirmos ir antros figūrų. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SAME-DIFFERENT EVALUATION OF FIGURES WHEN THEY ARE PRESENTED SIMULTANEOUSLY OR SUCCESSIVELYAlvydas Šoliūnas, Ona Gurčinienė SummaryIt is known that in same-different task, in which the subject must answer whether two presented stimuli are the same or different, the performance of the subjects can achieve two different modes – holistic and analytic. The other question is how the estimation of stimuli sameness depends on two prevailing methods used in same-different task – successive and simultaneous stimuli presentation. The purpose of this paper was to investigate whether the different modes in subject’s performance depend on these two methods of stimuli presentation.Psychophysical same-different experiment was performed in which the pairs of irregular polygons were presented simultaneously or successively. Five groups of stimuli pairs with different degree of reciprocal similarity were composed from the set of 12 polygons. Three interstimulus intervals were used under successive presentation conditions: 500 ms, 1000 ms, and 1500 ms. Stimuli were presented briefly (for 67–350 ms under simultaneous and for 33–100 ms under successive presentation conditions, and this time interval was established individually during training sessions) on computer screen. The subjects were required to answer whether two figures were the same or different.Under successive presentation conditions, the subjects fell into two different groups. For the majority of subjects, the performance directly depended on the degree of similarity between two figures – the more the figures were similar the longer the reaction time was and the more mistakes the subjects made. For other subjects, the performance accuracy but not the reaction time depended on the degree of figure similarity. Performance of these two groups of subjects could be attributed to the analytic and holistic strategies respectively. Under simultaneous presentation conditions, the subjects’ performance clearly did not split into two different modes: both the reaction time and performance accuracy depended on the degree of similarity of two figures. This result could suppose that all subjects probably use analytic strategy when compare two simultaneously presented stimuli.The practice under simultaneous presentation conditions and the difference in interstimulus interval under successive presentation conditions did not effect the character of the dependence of the accuracy and reaction time of the estimation of figure sameness, and the only effect was that the reaction time decreased with practice and increased with longer interstimulus intervals.