Among the three cognitive theories in Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia, the most intuitive one for me is Limited capacity, which I understand is that there are two separate systems in the brain, one for auditory processing and one for visual processing, but people need to consume cognitive resources for cognitive processing. However, cognitive processing requires cognitive resources, and cognitive resources are limited, so the amount of information that can be processed simultaneously in each information channel is also limited.
Mayer focuses on the reduction of external cognitive load and I agree with all four principles, the most agreeable of which is the redundancy principle, according to YouTube, “less really does equal more.” ( Redundancy principle, 0:49) means that using graphics, text and narration at the same time can overwhelm the brain and make it difficult for the audience to get the point you are trying to make. When I first started learning to create PowerPoint multimedia assignments, I liked to add pictures and large paragraphs of text to the screen at the same time, along with narration, but later found that this not only made the screen look messy, but also made it difficult to fully understand the content on the screen, so later on I personally preferred to add important pictures to the screen, or just short, important text.
Here is my screencast video.
The principles of signaling, redundancy, cohesion, and contiguity, firstly, I made the screencast video concise enough and easy for the audience to understand, without irrelevant content on the screen. Secondly, I kept the text and images far apart and avoided having a lot of text and images on the same screen, and I used arrows to point out important information.
I agree with your point of view. It is true that too much information can make it harder to get information. Just like there needs to be blank space in the painting, if too many points of attention or information are put in at the same time, it will be difficult to highlight the key points. Therefore, when we need to convey information, we should reduce useless information as much as possible, and let the necessary information be passed directly to readers. Of course, using pictures or colors at the same time will better assist memory. People will remember information more effectively through the contrast of pictures or colors.