the.com/cognitive load
the mental RAM you run out of right before you forget why you walked into the kitchen.
means the amount of working memory a task demands at any given moment, and why too many tabs open in your brain crashes the browser.
from coined by psychologist john sweller in 1988 studying how instructional design either helps or drowns learners; he split it into intrinsic (the task itself), extraneous (bad explanations), and germane (actual learning) load.
working memory limitholds roughly four chunks at once, not seven
bad design taxcluttered instructions add load with zero learning payoff
expertise reversalexperts get worse with beginner-friendly explanations