Individual Differences in Processing Capacity
Evidence has been found that individuals systematically differ in their processing capacity. A series of experiments support the assumption that each individual has a fixed capacity for processing information, irrespective of the task in question, or more accurately, irrespective of the processes an individual uses in solving any given task. Tasks ranged from remembering simple lists, lists supplemented with a fixed constant and simple arithmetic.
Identifying the processing capacity of individuals could be extremely useful in further adapting instruction (or predicting the behavior) of individuals. Accordingly, further research would clearly be desirable. First, it is essential to compute the memory load imposed by detailed analysis of the processes to be used. Second, it is essential to ensure that individual subjects are actually using those processes. The latter requires intensive pre-training.
Read more about this topic: Cognitive Load
Famous quotes containing the words individual, differences and/or capacity:
“A nation’s domestic and foreign policies and actions should be derived from the same standards of ethics, honesty and morality which are characteristic of the individual citizens of the nation.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“When was it that the particles became
The whole man, that tempers and beliefs became
Temper and belief and that differences lost
Difference and were one? It had to be
In the presence of a solitude of the self....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Lords and Commoners of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors; a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)