Multimedia, Multimodal Effects, and Universally Designed Instruction

Cognitive psychology often describes learning as the acquisition and reorganization of cognitive structures (Good and Brophy, 1990). These cognitive structures can be viewed as mental codes, temporary internal representations based on sensory experience (Baddeley and Hitch, 1994; Penney, 1989; Wickens, 2002; Barnard, 1999; and Paivio, 1986). In multimedia learning, the representations might involve more than one modality, and therefore have complex influences on the formation of memories (Mayer, 2001). A theoretical basis for the formation and use of multimodal mental codes based on multimedia can be used to better understand how presentation influences learning, especially for people with sensory and cognitive impairments. In turn, testing effects on people with such impairments will shed light on the relative contribution of cognitive versus sensory effects