April 5, 2007, 3:56 pm
The Neurological Case for Diagrams
By Henry Woodbury
Researchers at the University of New South Wales say the brain is not equipped to read and listen at the same time:
The findings show there are limits on the brain’s capacity to process and retain information in short-term memory.
John Sweller, from the university’s faculty of education, developed the “cognitive load theory”.
“The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster,” Professor Sweller said. “It should be ditched.”
“It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.” (my emphasis)
Powerpoint is everyone’s favorite target these days, but of course, it’s how people use Powerpoint that is the problem.
Also interesting: People learn by studying already solved problems. Learn a solution and you have a better chance of applying it the next time you run into a problem.
