The imagination effect increases with an increased intrinsic cognitive load

• Published in: Applied cognitive psychology Vol. 22; no. 2; pp. 273 - 283
• Main Authors: Leahy, Wayne, Sweller, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.03.2008; Wiley; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Developmental psychology; Effects; Elementary school students; Elementary schools; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Imagination; Information; Learning; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Students; Learning; Human; Mental imagery; Acquisition process; School age; Imagination; Cognition; Experimental study; Mental load; Child
• ISSN: 0888-4080; 1099-0720
• DOI: 10.1002/acp.1373

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.