Slava Kayuga
Human cognitive architecture
and its implications for the
design of instruction:
Introduction to cognitive load
theory
Working Memory
Constructing mental
representations of a
situation or task
Long-Term
Memory
Knowledge base

Sensory Memory:
Incoming information

Working memory (WM)
 Information enters WM once it has been
selected by allocating attention to it
 We have limited attention because of
limitations of WM
 Corresponds to consciousness or
awareness: we are conscious of
everything that is in WM
Working Memory
Repeat a telephone number
What have you been doing just before
this?
12 + 13 = ?
83468437 + 93849045 = ?
Taking notes – extension of WM
Short-term or working memory?
 Early models of memory referred to STM; it
is still commonly used today
 STM was thought of in terms of only
storing information (temporarily
remembering)
 Baddeley and Hitch (1974): we not only
store information for short periods of time
but also process information - hence WM
WM capacity
 Miller (1956) demonstrated that we have a
short-term memory span of 7 ± 2 units of
information – storage capacity
 Reconsideration of WM capacity when
processing is involved (Cowan, 2001)
 In terms of processing information, 4 is a
more likely number than 7
WM processing capacity
Suppose 5 days after the day before
yesterday is Friday. What day of the
week is tomorrow?
WM duration
Brown (1958); Peterson & Peterson (1959):
When people are distracted from rehearsing,
information is lost rapidly (e.g., after 18 sec –
everything was forgotten)
WM Structure
Baddeley 1986, 2001
Executive Control System
Controls the Operations of
Working Memory
Visual-spatial Sketch Pad
Visual Rehearsal
Phonological Loop
Auditory Rehearsal
 Allocates resources to other
systems- governs what
enters WM
 Director of cognitive workselects strategies
 Not a store or processor
 Processes visual images
 Spatial processing
 Holds acoustic or speech-based
information
 Auditory rehearsal of verbal
information
Working Memory
Repeat an unfamiliar foreign word
Close your eyes and pick up an object
in front of you
How many windows are in your house?
Long-term memory (LTM)
 permanent repository of the lifetime of
accumulated information
 unconscious component of our
memory: we are not conscious of LTM
information until it is activated and
brought into WM
 WM and LTM are two major components
of Human cognitive architecture
Role of LTM
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Effective WM capacity
 Miller (1956): short-term memory span is
7 ± 2 chunks of information
 What each chunk consists is dependent
on our knowledge stored in LTM
 What is in LTM would affect the way we
process information in WM
Effective WM capacity
 Information-“rich” chunks
 Chunking information into meaningful parts
has the effect of expanding the capacity of
working memory
 Examples: a Chinese character; a written
English word; newspaper vs textbook
Chess studies
de Groot (1966)
 Compared performance of chess
masters and weekend players
 Question: Do chess masters
 look ahead more moves?
 Consider a greater number of
alternative moves?
 Answer: verbal protocols
showed NO difference
between chess masters and
weekend players
Chess studies
de Groot (1966); Chase & Simon (1973)
 Investigated: players’ memory of chess boards
 Tested: master’s vs. weekend player’s memory
for real and random board configurations after
brief (5 sec) exposure
 Results: masters were superior in reconstructing
real game configurations (80-90% correct
compared to weekenders’ 30-40%) but NOT
random configurations
 Conclusion: Superiority was due to greater
amount of real-game chunks in master’s LTM
Role of LTM
 Grand masters have extensive and better
organized LTM knowledge base
 50-100 thousand configurations, at least 10
years of experience
 This study radically changed our view on the
role of LTM in human cognition
 LTM is not just for memorizing things, but is the
most critical component of our cognition
(including learning), the source of our
intellectual strength
LTM in human cognition
 Grand masters read the chess board the
same way you read words in a text
 Similar mechanisms for all high-level
cognitive skills (e.g., text comprehension)
 LTM - not a passive store of information; it
is actively used in most of cognitive
processes and is central to perception,
learning, problem solving
Schemas (schemata)
“Organized structures that capture
knowledge and expectations of some
aspect of the world” (Bartlett, 1932)
Organized knowledge structures
that represent generic concepts and
categorize information according to
the way in which we use it
What is this list about?
table
chair
knife
fork
spoon
cup
plate
toast
butter
jam
cloth
juice
bowl
tea
Schemas
Examples:
a tree schema
a face schema
reading a page of prose: schemas for letters,
words, phrases, sentence structures
Restaurant script (procedural schema)
Schemas as major building
blocks of cognition
 Schema theory is the most commonly used
framework for understanding LTM
 Memory is actively constructed using
schemas
 Pre-existing schemas determine what
incoming material is relevant
 Relevant material processed
 Irrelevant material discarded
Schema automation
Schema automation is achieved by
practicing skills until they do not
require consciously controlled and
effortful processing.
When basic mental operations occur
automatically, resources are available for
more sophisticated cognitive operations
(e.g., reading, math operations, etc.)
Automation
Explains why individuals can
 conduct difficult tasks
 simultaneously conduct several tasks
 read for meaning rather than focus on
the individual letters and words
 be accomplished performers (e.g.,
musicians)
 Automation is slow to develop and
requires significant practice
Schemas
 Schemas affect not only what we
memorize, but how we think, reason,
solve problems
 Intelligence – in number and complexity
of acquired schemas
 Nature of expertise
Expert characteristics:
Domain-specific knowledge
 Experts have a large store of domain-specific
schemas for problem solving in the domain
 Automated schemas reduce WM demands and
allow higher order functions (monitoring,
evaluating etc.)
 Experts deal with problems at a deeper level:
categorize according to deep structures
(principles) rather than surface structures
Expert characteristics:
Treatment of problem
Task: categorize the following into 3 groups
Soldiers, 1492, discovery, kings & queens,
1914, revolution, sailors, war, 1789.
 Surface structure grouping: 1492, 1914, 1789
Deep structure grouping: 1789, Kings and
Queens, revolution (French Revolution)
 Physics experts classified problems according to
the laws of physics rather than surface structures
(e.g. Chi, Glaser & Farr, 1988)
Implications for improving
problem solving
 Acquisition of extensive domain-specific
knowledge (schemas) is essential: the only
way to be good in problem solving
 broken car: we call a mechanic (an expert),
not a general “problem solver”
 You can become expert problem solver in a
specific area, not in every area
 Studying expert solutions
 emphasising higher-order skills, categorization
of problems
Arithmetic word problems
(Marshall, 1995)
Analysis of the task domain to identify
core schemas:
 After 6 passengers had left the bus, 9
passengers remained. How many
passengers were on the bus initially?
(Change Schema)
 Peter's book contains 50 pages. Peter read
15 pages in the morning. In the afternoon,
he read the remaining pages and finished
the book. How many pages did Peter read
in the afternoon? (Group Schema) etc.
Go Solve Word Problems
Tom Snyder Productions
Instructional implications
Do not overload WM!
If material is difficult to learn, learner WM is
likely to be overloaded
Manage information-processing “bottleneck”
by chunking information into meaningful
groups based on available knowledge
Help students to link new information with
prior knowledge
Instructional implications
Enhance acquisition and automation of
knowledge in LTM - a major goal
Use dual modality (visual and auditory)
Minimise interference /distractions
Provide adequate time to enable processing
Instruction that requires many inferences
(things are not stated explicitly) overloads WM
Cognitive Load Theory
 Instructional theory that takes into account
limitations of learner working memory
 Cognitive load (working memory load):
working memory capacity required by a
particular cognitive task
 Cognitive load depends on the level of
interactivity between elements of
information
Sweller 1999; Sweller, Ayres & Kalyuga, 2011
Element interactivity
Low
High
List of variables:
a, x, b
Equation: ax=b
Names of electrical
symbols and what they
represent
Operation of an
electrical circuit
Learning vocabulary of a
foreign language
Learning grammar
Measurement of Cognitive Load
Objective measures
 Task and performance
 Secondary task
 Psychophysiological
Subjective measures
 Rating scales
Objective measures
 Secondary task
Slow RT
Rapid RT
Resources to
secondary task
Cognitive resources
to simple primary
task
Fixed cognitive capacity
Resources to
secondary task
Cognitive resources
to complex primary
task
Fixed cognitive capacity
Subjective measures
 Rating scales
In solving or studying the preceding problem I invested:
very, very
low mental
effort
neither low
nor high
mental effort
very, very
high mental
effort
Subjective measures: Rating scales (NASA-TLX)
Types of cognitive load
Useful, productive load (intrinsic load) – relevant
to achieving learning goals


determined by the degree of element interactivity
depends on specific instructional goals and prior
knowledge of the learner (chunking!)
Wasteful, unproductive load (extraneous load) irrelevant to learning, imposed by the manner in
which information is presented to learners and the
learning activities required of them
 dependent on the design of instruction
Intrinsic + Extraneous =Total cognitive load
Efficient learning
Managing intrinsic (productive) load
Reducing extraneous (wasteful) cognitive
load
General rule: Do not do anything that gets in
the way of learning!
If intrinsic load is low (simple tasks), there
could be no need to reduce extraneous load
References
Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. G.
W. C. (1998). Cognitive architecture and
instructional design. Educational Psychology
Review, 10, 251-296.
Van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Sweller, J. (2005).
Cognitive load theory and complex learning: Recent
developments and future directions. Educational
Psychology Review, 17, 147-177.