Narrative in Multimedia Learning: The Learner as Story Maker (2009)
Several mental models of multimedia learning emphasize limited processing capacity in encoding and retention of information (Mayer, 2002; Sweller, 2005). They share the notion that appropriate use of multimedia can help to overcome the limited capacity. In contrast to the two preceding models, the Congruence-Association Model (CAM) arose from the context of film and media perception (Cohen, 2005). In an extension of this model to the education context, CAM views the learner as aiming to make sense out of six simultaneous channels of information: text, visual scenes, speech, sound effects, music, and human-body motion. This information is analysed in terms of its temporal structures and in terms of the associations (meanings) brought to mind. Some information that leaks through to long term memory elicits hypotheses, expectation in a narrative context about what is actually happening at the level of the presentation. It is argued that the learner creates a working narrative based on the best match between the lower order (structures and associations) and higher level (hypotheses) information. The model emphasizes that the learner as a creator of narrative. The model claims that a multimedia presentation which leads the learner to create a coherent narrative will promote superior learning (retention and transfer) than presentations (with or without media) that provide poor support for coherent narrative. It follows that lecturers could consider the lecture in the context of narrative and the selection of multimedia enhancement in terms of its facilitation of generation of coherent narrative.
Annabel J. Cohen (B.A. McGill; Ph. D. Queen’s University; ARCT Royal Conservatory – Toronto) has dedicated her career to the study of music cognition, with extensions to multimedia and learning in a cultural context. She is Principal Investigator and Project Director of AIRS (Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing, www.airsplace.ca), an interdisciplinary, international initiative supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through its major collaborative research initiative program. As a Professor of Psychology at the University of Prince Edward Island, she was the designated Project Leader for a Canada Foundation for Innovation grant that focused on interdisciplinary educational research in Culture, Multimedia, Technology and Cognition in partnership with UNB and U de Moncton. This project is the foundation for the current conference. She has published over 85 articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings papers, contributing to the psychological understanding of tonality, music transposition, the acquisition of music grammar, effects of film music, and creativity. A recent focus with her students has been the development of the AIRS short battery of singing skills. She is the editor of Psychomusicology: Music, Mind and Brain, and serves on the consulting boards of several other journals. Her research has received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). She is an Adjunct Professor at Dalhousie University, Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, and Council member of the American Psychological Association.