What’s on the Cognitive Load poster
A 3-row table: Load · Comes from · Do.
Sweller's three types.
- Intrinsic — The material's inherent difficulty — Sequence and segment it
- Extraneous — Poor presentation — Eliminate it
- Germane — Effort building schemas — Encourage it
The split-attention effect: separating a diagram from its explanation forces the learner to hold one in memory while reading the other.
Questions about the Cognitive Load poster
- What’s on the Cognitive Load poster?
- A 3-row table: Load · Comes from · Do. Sweller's three types. Intrinsic — The material's inherent difficulty — Sequence and segment it; Extraneous — Poor presentation — Eliminate it; Germane — Effort building schemas — Encourage it. The split-attention effect: separating a diagram from its explanation forces the learner to hold one in memory while reading the other.
- Who is the Cognitive Load poster for?
- Cognitive Load belongs to the Psychology section rather than to a school year, because life science is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning cognitive can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Cognitive Load poster?
- Working memory is the bottleneck. Instruction that ignores it fails regardless of content. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Cognitive Load belongs on the wall where that life science work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Cognitive Load?
- Attention, Decision Making and Dual Process Theory sit alongside Cognitive Load in the Psychology section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.AttentionDecision MakingDual Process Theory
- Is the Cognitive Load poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Cognitive Load downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Psychology section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Cognitive Load poster print at?
- Cognitive Load is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Cognitive Load loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Cognitive Load on the same wall.
Browse every Psychology poster, or start from the full catalogue.