Towards Demonstrating Limited Cognitive Reception Bandwidth

Limited cognitive load has come up frequently in literature especially with respect to learning. It provides an explanation to a number of phenomena that are observed in learning. However, it does not explain how experts learn better from diverse sources while novices learn better from a clear limited source of information. Nor does it explain how sequential presentation of a cognitively demanding task is accomplished with ease compared to a split-attention presentation on the same screen of the same task. This paper, introduces a small addition to existing theory by suggesting a limited cognitive reception bandwidth. This implies that students are limited by how much information transfer can take place in parallel. This informs technology based systems in particular these that are capable of parallel information presentation through multiple windows.