e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning

6.5. Psychological Reasons for Exceptions to the Redundancy Principle

The major exceptions to the redundancy principle occur in special situations in which on-screen text either does not add to the learner's processing demands or actually diminishes them. For example, consider the situation in which an instructional presentation consists solely of spoken words with no graphics—such as in a pod-cast. In this case, information enters through the ears so the verbal channel is active, but the visual channel is not active. Now, consider what happens in the learner's cognitive system when you use redundant on-screen text, for example, presented as text on a computer screen using the same words as the narration. In this case, spoken words enter through ...