![]() Both experiments had the animations with narrations and either added background music, sounds, both, or neither. The results of their two studies showed that unnecessary sounds decrease learning. Roxana Moreno and Richard Mayer, two prolific learning researchers, tested whether adding auditory sounds (background music or sounds) improved or harmed learning in multimedia instructional messages (animations on lightening and hydraulic braking). This helps people use mental process to learn rather than struggle. Here is the primary implication: Know what causes harmful cognitive load and remove it from instruction. Unnecessary media and content make the task of selecting what is important harder and more effortful. Research shows that perception is tasked with picking out what is important because it cannot attend to everything. We must generally not use WM for non-essential items (such as unnecessary media and content) as it makes it harder to learn. Patti’s answer: The answer is that working memory has limited capacity. Stop reading for a moment and think about why these items cause harmful cognitive load, given what I told you about working memory (Really! Try to answer the question before going ahead). Here are some examples of extraneous (harmful) cognitive load: ![]() We call the harmful type extraneous cognitive load and, when we don’t reduce this type of cognitive load, we make it harder to learn. There are two types of cognitive load: helpful and harmful. ![]() And learning quickly is a mandate for current organizational conditions. John Sweller, a well-known researcher and writer on memory and cognitive load and other aspects of learning, reminds us we must design with how our mental processes work. Working memory needs to process new information but it has considerable constraints (in capacity for new material and holding time). Cognitive load relates to mental processes (like perception, thinking, and organizing) used for thinking, learning, and working. The general rationale for not using background music is that it increases harmful cognitive load. To help our organizations survive, we must use the best training and learning tactics and get away from fads and folklore. Because of accelerating technological, demographic, and sociopolitical changes, the longevity of organizations is plummeting. This is my entire reason for writing the Make It Learnable series. (Research is science, so it grows, changes, and morphs.) And it has a lot of answers that L&D practitioners regularly ignore but shouldn’t. Research doesn’t always have concrete answers, but when it does, we should use them. If you read my articles, you know I’m a fan of designing according what improves learning and training outcomes and not doing what harms outcomes. ![]() More than a few people were adamant that they must include music. This started an interesting discussion on LinkedIn. In a recent blog post, I discussed the reasons why we should not use background music with instruction. Why We Should Not Use Background Music With Instruction ![]()
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