(9) The Impact of Cognitive Load on Semantic Processing in College Students

     Cognitive load can be described as the total amount of mental effort being used at any given time.  Previous findings suggest that cognitive load can impact learning and memory (Antonenko & Niederhauser, 2010).... [ view full abstract ]

     Cognitive load can be described as the total amount of mental effort being used at any given time.  Previous findings suggest that cognitive load can impact learning and memory (Antonenko & Niederhauser, 2010). Students who are involved in a variety of extracurricular activities and/or working in addition to maintaining a full time courseload often times report feeling overwhelmed. Thus, managing time, responsibilities, and participation in various roles may result in depleted resources in the classroom (Fraser, Ma, Teteris, Baxter, Wright, & McLaughlin, 2012). In this experiment, we examined the influence of cognitive load on semantic processing to mimic the real-life experience of feeling overwhelmed prior to a classroom experience. Participants answered self-report measures of mood and working memory (WM) span and completed a lexical decision task judging semantically related and unrelated word pairs. We expect to find differences in reaction time for semantically related words for those in the high vs. low load manipulation. We also expect that WM span will moderate the impact of load, as in those with high WM span will show no significant differences between load condition. These findings will enable us to recommend study suggestions to students and possible considerations for faculty.