Paul Ayres’s research while affiliated with UNSW Sydney and other places

In two experiments, we compared the effects of practice (real and imitative) with no practice on the observational learning of hand motor skills from animated videos. Experiment 1 investigated learning to play a series of piano clips of varying complexity. Results demonstrated improved learning efficiency with imitative practice compared to no practice. Experiment 2 featured a paper-folding task, and results indicated that real practice led to significantly greater learning than no practice. Furthermore, a significant interaction was found with gender and practice, where females learned best with both real and imitative practice, but males did not benefit from these interventions. However, males outperformed females in the no practice condition. Overall, we found benefits of practice versus no practice for both tasks. However, the most effective type of practice was dependent upon the task: imitative practice for piano playing, and real practice for paper folding. Task complexity and gender were also found to be moderating factors.

Research on embodied cognition acknowledges that cognitive processing is tightly coupled with bodily activities and the environment. An important implication for education is that learning can be enhanced when the brain, body, and environment mutually influence each other, such as when making or observing human actions, especially those involving hand gestures and manipulation of objects. In this narrative review article, we describe the evidence from six research avenues that can help explain why embodied cognition can enhance learning and instruction. Through the exploration of these six interconnected research pathways, we aim to make a significant contribution by proposing innovative directions for learning and instruction research, all rooted in the principles of embodied cognition. We establish a direct link between the six research pathways and embodied phenomena, both in the contexts of making and observing human movements. When making human movements, the research avenues explaining the learning benefits due to these movements are physical activity, generative learning, and offloaded cognition. When observing human movements, the avenues researching these phenomena are specialized processor and signaling. Lastly, the research avenue social cognition is integral to both making and observing human movements. With originality in focus, we also include research that has not been traditionally associated with embodied cognition or embodiment. This article offers comprehensive discussions, substantiated with evidence and influencing features, for each of these research avenues. We conclude by outlining the implications of these findings for instruction and charting potential directions for future investigation.

A contemporary review (over a 10-year period) was conducted into studies that used computer-assisted language learning (CALL) strategies to learn a second language (L2) by considering the impact of cognitive load. Twelve affordances were identified that led to enhanced learning, namely, online annotations and glosses, captioning, digital game-based language learning, videoconferencing and video feedback, visualization-based learning approaches, online instructional content and features, online machine translation tools, online interactive collaborative learning, (meta) cognitive learning strategies argument mapping, computer-mediated dictionary assisted learning, and multiple display screens. Associated with these affordances were a number of conditions and learner characteristics that modified the effectiveness of the affordances such as L2 proficiency. Most learning strategies were used to reduce cognitive load, although a limited number fostered germane cognitive load through generative learning practices. A number of issues associated with measuring cognitive load, multimedia learning, and research designs are also discussed.

Background: Research indicates that animations presenting procedural instructions lead to better learning if the animation displays the procedural task from a first-person perspective (over-the-shoulder) compared to a third-person perspective (face-to-face). Aims: This study extends view-perspective research by investigating whether the observation of human hands completing manipulative tasks in an animation are necessary or not. Sample: Sixty university students participated in the study. Method: Participants studied two knot-tying animations from a first-person perspective showing hands, or a third-person perspective showing hands, or a first-person perspective without showing hands. Results: Results showed that studying first-person perspective animations resulted in higher performance on a knot-tying task and recognition task (but not transfer task) than studying the third-person perspective animations. The strongest effects were gained from the first-person perspective animations showing hands, although comparable learning outcomes were often found with the no-hands perspective animations. In addition, spatial ability was found to influence knot-tying and recognition performance, while gender minimally interacted with performance in the different viewing perspective conditions. Conclusions: Hand-manipulative task are learned most optimally from animations when presented from a first-person perspective, while it is not necessary to show the hands.

Cette étude est consacrée à deux facteurs (genre ; habileté spatiale), dont la prise en compte pourrait expliquer les résultats mitigés souvent obtenus dans les recherches sur les animations pédagogiques. L’étude a comparé l’efficacité des animations pédagogiques sur les apprentissages en comparant trois conditions (animation ; animation + explication orale ; animation + gestuelle). 72 étudiants ont été assignés de manière aléatoire à l’une des trois conditions. L’animation montrait comment réaliser un pliage sur papier. Dans l’ensemble, la condition avec explication orale s’est avérée supérieure à la condition de gestuelle, qui était à elle-même supérieure à la condition d’animation toute seule. Cependant, ce résultat a été obtenu uniquement avec des femmes. Chez les hommes, aucune différence significative n’a été constatée entre les conditions. En outre, les femmes ont obtenu des scores plus élevés que les hommes, même s’il n’y avait pas de différences d’habileté spatiale. Une mesure appropriée de l’habileté spatiale, en tant que covariable, s’est avérée nécessaire pour identifier tous les effets. Si les données relatives au genre et à l’aptitude spatiale avaient été exclues des analyses, les résultats auraient été trompeurs et incomplets.

A sample of 33 experiments was extracted from the Web-of-Science database over a 5-year period (2016–2020) that used physiological measures to measure intrinsic cognitive load. Only studies that required participants to solve tasks of varying complexities using a within-subjects design were included. The sample identified a number of different physiological measures obtained by recording signals from four main body categories (heart and lungs, eyes, skin, and brain), as well as subjective measures. The overall validity of the measures was assessed by examining construct validity and sensitivity. It was found that the vast majority of physiological measures had some level of validity, but varied considerably in sensitivity to detect subtle changes in intrinsic cognitive load. Validity was also influenced by the type of task. Eye-measures were found to be the most sensitive followed by the heart and lungs, skin, and brain. However, subjective measures had the highest levels of validity. It is concluded that a combination of physiological and subjective measures is most effective in detecting changes in intrinsic cognitive load.

This article discusses the findings from a collection of six studies linked together by the common theme of cognitive load theory and published in Computers in Human Behavior. A number of familiar cognitive load conditions and effects are investigated in computer-based environments, namely worked examples, split-attention, and the expertise reversal effect; but in many cases cognitive load considerations are combined with other learning strategies such as pre-training, thinking aloud, self-explanations, embodied cognition, and presentation pausing. A number of key findings are identified including the use of contemporary physiological instruments to measure cognitive load. There is also a focus on real-world tasks and medical education, as well as the self-management of cognitive load.

One potential advantage and special feature of animations is the capability of depicting change. However, from a learning perspective this advantage is often lost due to the negative effects of transient information. This chapter discusses some of the issues associated with learning from animations, but also explores how problem complexity (element interactivity) impacts on learning from animations. We conclude that both transient information and problem complexity need to be addressed when designing instructional animations. However, there are some significant interactions between these two factors, which are seldom examined together, that require further research.

This chapter outlines a number of factors that have impacted the research into instructional animations. It describes how the findings from comparisons between animations and statics, the major research paradigm, has found mixed results showing that animations are not always more effective than equivalent static pictures. We also describe some mounting evidence that animations seem to be particularly more suited to learning human motor skills rather than other types of knowledge and skills. However, we conclude that it is difficult to have total confidence in the research because many studies have inbuilt design biases that have not been controlled for. In addition, three learner characteristics (spatial ability, gender, and prior knowledge), which have been shown to influence the effectiveness animations, are also often ignored in the research. We discuss the transient nature of information present in animations that increases cognitive load and is a major impediment to learning. We also outline a number of compensatory strategies, such as learner interactivity and segmentation, that can support learning from animations, and describe how more general learning strategies, such as gesturing and collaboration, can be used in tandem with animations to facilitate greater learning.

The visuospatial processor of working memory is used for manipulations of visual and spatial information, such as mental rotation and mental folding, and consequently plays an essential role in learning from static and dynamic visualisations in multimedia materials. Learners showing low scores in tests of visuospatial abilities (e.g., mental rotation tests) tend to show low scores in tests of multimedia content, especially if these multimedia include a high total cognitive load. However, since there are several visuospatial processing abilities, the specific relationship between a certain ability and learning a certain multimedia task is not always clear. In this review chapter we provide examples of studies where the visuospatial ability investigated was not directly related to the multimedia learning task, as well as studies in which there was a more direct relationship. We argue that future research should explore more direct links between different visuospatial abilities and particular multimedia learning tasks.