Explaining Cognitive Load Theory (CLT)

Your working memory capacity can be overloaded in three ways, making you feel mentally drained:

• New routines can prevent you from the ability to do things on auto-pilot and will instead draw on your limited working memory capacity.
• Anxiety a...

Cognitive load is the effort used by the working memory to process information. The working memory capacity is limited: If it is overloaded with information, you will fail to understand.

There are three types of cognitive load:

• Intrinsic load....

Our working memory is what allows us to focus on the information we need to get things done at the moment we’re doing them. It is also in limited supply. You can think of it like our brain’s computer memory. Once it’s used up, nothing more can fit in.

When you overanalyze ...