Véronique Dubois

This article argues that conducting experiments involving the ability to control and even manipulate the cognitive load in working memory (WM; storage and or processing load) should make it possible to identify the processes involved during the integration of information coming from multiple sources. Some experiments using the dual‐task paradigm are reviewed, and an original experiment using complex multimedia material is presented. Overall, the experiments show that even in cases where subjects have to navigate between different types of information and have to integrate various items of information, the verbal storage component of WM is important in permitting comprehension. Visuospatial WM is in addition involved as soon as visuospatial processing is required. Storage of verbal information does not however depend on the modality of presentation and the classical modality effect appears to depend on individual differences. Some theoretical and practical implications of these results are drawn. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The dual‐task paradigm was used to show how visuospatial working memory and the phonological loop are involved in processing scientific texts and illustrations presented via computer. In experiment 1, two presentation formats were compared: text‐only and text‐with‐illustrations. With a concurrent tapping task, the beneficial effect of illustrations disappeared, while a concurrent articulatory task impaired performance similarly in both presentation formats. An analysis of individual differences revealed that this pattern of results was present in high, but not low spatial span subjects. These results support the selective involvement of visuospatial working memory in processing illustrated texts. In Experiment 2, the text‐only presentation format was compared to an illustrations‐only format. The concurrent articulatory task selectively impaired text‐only processing, compared with processing illustrations‐only. In addition, this pattern of results was found for high, but not low digit span subjects. These results suggest that individual differences define the extent to which the two subsystems of working memory are involved in learning from multimedia. These two subsystems would be mainly involved in the maintenance of a visual trace of illustrations and of a verbatim representation of linguistic information respectively, these representations being the basis for higher‐level comprehension processes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.