Principle 05
Cognitive Load
Strip jargon until the graph fits in four chunks.
- Function
- Keep intrinsic load inside working memory
- Substrates
- Frontoparietal network · intraparietal sulcus
- Intervention
- Worked examples, segmenting, terminology suppression
- In transfer
- Stops overload during the first mapping.
Working memory holds about four chunks (Cowan, 2001 — not Miller’s 7). A schema is how experts cheat: a whole graph arrives as one chunk. Until that happens, element interactivity is lethal.
Extraneous load is the costume — extra labels, split attention, decorative chrome. Germane load is the work of assembling Σ. Means-ends problem solving as the first move in a new domain is exactly what CLT says not to do.
Sweller 1988; Sweller, van Merriënboer & Paas 1998; Cowan 2001