The imagination effect increases with an increased intrinsic cognitive load
By Wayne Leahy, John Sweller. 2008
98 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The imagination effect occurs when learners imagining a procedure or concept perform better on a subsequent test than learners studying rather than imagining. Cognitive load theory explains this result by postulating that information is more likely to be transferred from working to long-term memory under imagination conditions. In an experiment using elementary school students, it was hypothesised that the imagination effect would be larger using more complex, high intrinsic cognitive load information rather than less complex, low intrinsic cognitive load information because assistance in transferring information to long-term memory provided by the imagination procedure is less important using simpler materials. Experimental results supported this hypothesis. It was concluded that imagination instructions are more likely to enhance learning when associated with complex information. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Subfields: Education, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d3ce862500659ab3578073489b1629a802bb6ae0
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Education
- Fred Paas
- Tamara van Gog
- John Sweller
- Richard E. Mayer
- Paul Ayres
- Logan Fiorella
- Roxana Moreno
- J. V. van Merriënboer
In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Fred Paas
- Tamara van Gog
- Richard E. Mayer
- John Sweller
- Logan Fiorella
- Paul Ayres
- J. V. van Merriënboer
- Slava Kalyuga
Citations in the corpus
- The Mirror Neuron System and Observational Learning: Implications for the Effectiveness of Dynamic Visualizations (2009, background): “…imagining problem-solving steps to be performed can be effective for learning cognitive tasks, but only once the required actions form part of the learners’ repertoire (i.e., not for novices, but for advanced learners; Cooper, Tindall-Ford, Chandler, & Sweller, 2001; Leahy & Sweller, 2005, 2008).”
- Creative Teaching: Why it Matters and Where to Begin (2011, background): “The exclusion of creative teaching is an unfortunate occurrence considering it has been indicated that creativity not only is conducive to learning, student achievement, and cognitive development but also is a predictor of academic success (Eckhoff and Urbach 2008; Freucnd and Holling 2008; Leahy an”
- Example-Based Learning: Integrating Cognitive and Social-Cognitive Research Perspectives (2010, background): “This was also shown by Leahy and Sweller (2005, 2008) who demonstrated that the imagination effect is more likely to be obtained with complex materials (i.e., materials that are high in intrinsic load, containing many interacting information elements; Sweller et al. 1998).”
- Eight Ways to Promote Generative Learning (2016, methodology): “…on imagining as a learning strategy includes imagining procedural steps such as using a spreadsheet (Cooper et al. 2001) or using a bus schedule (Leahy and Sweller 2005, 2008), as well as imagining the structure and processes described in reading scientific texts about how a biological system…”