Embodiment Principle

Overview

The Embodiment Principle in Multimedia Learning suggests that learning is more effective when concepts are linked to relevant actions, such as hand gestures or object manipulations. This principle is based on the idea that thinking is grounded in our experiences interacting with the world, and that our motor system is involved in a range of cognitive tasks. Students learn by enacting the movements performed by the pedagogical agent or human instructor perform them . The principle recognises the importance of sensorimotor support in learning over conventional symbolic representation as more appropriate means for learning and cognition. The idea is that by connecting concepts to physical actions, through embodied cognition it can help reduce cognitive load and increase generative processing, which is the process of selecting, organizing, and integrating information.

The instructional message for keeping the embodied principle in mind is giving onscreen characters human-like gestures