The study of memory, imagination and empathy is largely isolated.Thus, our empathic tendency to care for and help others is thought to be independent of our ability to remember and imagine events.Despite this theoretical autonomy, research from psychology and neuroscience suggests that these cognitive abilities may be related(Gaesser, 2013).
When presenting the process or concept to be learned, compared with traditional learning, imagination process or concept can be an effective teaching technique to produce imagination effect.However, the importance of learning through imagination as a teaching technique depends on the presentation model.Experiment 1 tested adult learning or imagined contour maps as participants and was designed to verify the generality of the imagined effect.The imagination instruction is superior to the learning instruction of the following test questions.Experiment 2 further investigated the effect by comparing younger students (grade 4) to study or imagine temperature/time diagrams presented in either split-attention (spatial separation diagrams and texts) or integration (spatial combination diagrams and texts) formats.The results of subsequent tests showed that, compared with the research materials, fourth-graders found that imagination was beneficial to their learning, but the effect was obtained only using the integrated attention format rather than the split attention format.Experiment 3 was conducted to obtain oral protocols from the level 4 imagination and research group, using the same teaching materials to elucidating the cognitive mechanisms behind the imagination effect.
Gaesser, B. (2013). Constructing memory, imagination, and empathy: a cognitive neuroscience perspective. Frontiers in psychology, 3, 576.
Leahy, W., & Sweller, J. (2004). Cognitive load and the imagination effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology: The Official Journal of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 18(7), 857-875.
Cognitivie Load Theory (CLT) 