Robinson, D., & Molina, E. (2002). The relative involvement of visual and auditory working memory when studying adjunct displays. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27(1), 118-131

Robinson, D.; Molina, E.

2002

Robinson, D., & Molina, E. (2002). The relative involvement of visual and auditory working memory when studying adjunct displays. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27(1), 118-131

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In two experiments, graduate students read a chapter-length text accompanied by seven outlines or graphic organizers. Students then performed 10 trials where they either viewed an image or listened to a sound, were tested on comprehension of the text and then were tested on recognition of the image or sound. In both experiments students who studied graphic organizers performed worse on the visual task, and in the second experiment, students who studied outlines performed worse on the auditory task. These results provide evidence that graphic organizers are encoded in a more visual format than outlines, whereas outlines are encoded in a more auditory format than graphic organizers. Results are also supportive of both conjoin retention (R. W. Kulhavy et al, 1985) and dual coding (A. Paivio, 1986) models of text learning and help to explain why graphic organizers are more effective than out lines in helping students learn concent relations in text.

There is an involvement of the working memory systems when retrieving information after studying text with outlines or graphic organizers. Participants who read the text with an outline outperformed the participants who read the text and the grapic organizer on the visual memory task. Participants who read the text with an graphic organizer outperformed the participants who read the text and the outline on the auditory memory task. In text processing the phonological loop is mainly involved. When using graphic organizers, the sketchpad becomes more used resulting in an additional memory path, and lessens the cognitive load in the phonological loop.

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