IS THERE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LEARNING PROCESS WHEN MULTIMEDIA IS INVOLVED? At the University of Maribor in Slovenia, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to measure brain activity when exposed to different media. This page will summarize the experiment and present a simulation using shockwave.

The sample included 38 student-teachers of age 20.7 years (+/- 0.4 years) enrolled in psychology course. 19 of them (6 male and 13 female) were gifted students (IQ range 130-140). The other 19 (10 male and 9 female) were average reporting no special talent (IQ range 90-110).

Each student was seated in a chair in front of a computer. The media types were presented in different combinations of: text, sound, picture, and video. The order of presentation was randomly determined for each person. The presentations were as follows:

1.The text presentation was about Mars and was written on a piece of paper. It instructed individuals to mentally visualize data provided in the text.
2. The picture presentation consisted of text delivered orally and on a computer monitor. The data was accompanied by music and a picture showing the structure of the planet Mars.
3. The video presentation was the same as above, except instead of a picture, a video clip was used to show an animated flight over the surface of the planet.

1.The text presentation in comparison with the picture and video produced higher mental activity on the frontal lobe and parietal lobe locations.
2. An opposite effect was observed in the occipital and temporal locations. This showed a failure by the students to visualize data provided by text alone.
3. The video and picture presentations showed no significant difference in mental activity from each other.

These results are expected from what is known about the function of these areas. One of the basic functions of the temporal cortex is the processing of auditory input (hearing), while vision is processed in the occipital lobes

The results show that students find it difficult to form mental models from text alone. Multimedia presentations trigger visualization strategies such as mental imagery, which is crucial to many kinds of problem solving. However, additional research is needed to understand the brain at the synaptic level before any definitive guideline is endorsed.

Below is a shockwave simulation that shows how different media types activate different parts of the brain. Read instructions in lower screen before you begin.

Leo Clemente