Table of Contents

The Spatial Contiguity Principle

Theory

The spatial contiguity principle suggests that related information sources should be spatially integrated in order to reduce attention-splitting and facilitate learning.

Practice

Spatial contiguity principle. Image borrowed from: http://eet.sdsu.edu/eetwiki... Click on the picture to follow the link.An example of a solved mathematical problem taking into consideration and ignoring the spatial contiguity principle is presented in image on the right. Example A shows separated text and graph (two information sources), whereas example B shows same two information sources, but this time spatially integrated. For another example see work of Florax and Ploetzner1).

Research status

Experiments have confirmed importance of this principle2), yet similar results were sometimes obtained using not necessarily spatial contiguity, but segmenting text and labeling the image as key contributors to it.3)

1) , 3)
Florax, Mareike, and Rolf Ploetzner. What contributes to the split-attention effect? The role of text segmentation, picture labelling, and spatial proximity. Learning and Instruction 20, no. 3: 216-224. June 2010.
2)
Chandler, P. and Sweller, J. Cognitive load theory and the format of instruction. Cognition and Instruction, 8(4), 293-332. 1991.