Research on working memory (WM) has followed two largely independent traditions: One concerned with memory for sequentially presented lists of discrete items, and the other with short-term maintenance of simultaneously presented arrays of objects with simple, continuously varying features. Here we present a formal model of WM, the interference…

Sensory overload and split attention result in reduced learning when instructors read slides with bullet points and complex graphs during a lecture. Conversely, slides containing relevant visual elements, when accompanied by instructor narration, use both the visual and verbal channels of a student's working memory, thus improving the chances of…