Cognitive Psychology Document Design

Pooja Bembey & Vikrant Rai

Cognitive Psychology
 Explores

internal mental processes  Studies how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems  Areas in cognitive psychology:
 Perception  Categorization  Memory  Language  Thinking

History

Associationism/ Behaviorism

Early Cognitive Psychology

Current Cognitive Psychology

Social Constructivism

Advances in CP and Learning Theory

Information Processing System

What do you see?

And now!

Again!

How we understand?

Preattentive and Attentive Processes

Serial and Parallel Processes

Spot the dot!

Odd one out!

How we process information?

Searching

Attention

Encoding

Rehearsal

Workingmemory operations

Chunking

Documentation Design
Learning strategies  Language  Color  Multimedia  Graphics


Learning Strategies

Learning by Example

Interactive Tutorials

Problem Solving

Discovery Learning

Design Matrix

To elaborate or not to elaborate
• Ensure documentation is as complete as possible • Assume little or no prior knowledge

Expounders

Minimalists

• Believe in doing things instead of reading • Encourage exploration by providing as little as possible

Language
Perception
Text Properties Visible Patterns Facilitate Recall Fonts Whitespace Structure

Cognition
Reduce Load

Color
Direct Attention

Create Affect

Delimit Shapes and Areas

Facilitate Identification

Clarify Complex Ideas

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning

Multimedia
Multiple Representation Principle  Contiguity Principle  Split Attention Principle  Individual Differences Principle  Coherence Principle


Pictorial Information
Represent Realistic Images

Consider Audience Characteristics

Illustrate Conceptual Information

Thank you!

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