What does this research mean for the field?

Physical e-learning environments significantly impact cognitive load, with unstructured settings like parks imposing higher cognitive demands driven primarily by visual complexity, social density, and ambient noise. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To evaluate how different physical environments influence cognitive load and learning performance during e-learning using multimodal physiological sensing.

August 22, 2026Distance Education

Cognitive load in e-learning: how different environments shape learning efficiency

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Authors

FRFatema RahimiSejong University ASAbolghasem Sadeghi-NiarakiSejong University SCSoo-Mi ChoiSejong University

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Implication

Experimental study demonstrates that outdoor and visually complex environments increase cognitive load during e-learning, highlighting the impact of physical context on digital education efficiency.

Key Points

To evaluate how different physical environments influence cognitive load and learning performance during e-learning using multimodal physiological sensing.
Monitored 48 participants (N=48) watching an instructional video across four naturalistic settings: study room, library, coffee shop, and park.
Collected real-time electroencephalography (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), photoplethysmography (PPG), ambient noise, social density, and computer vision-quantified visual complexity.
Applied a large language model framework to estimate cognitive load from multimodal physiological inputs and validated results against NASA-TLX self-reports.
Outdoor park environments imposed significantly higher cognitive demand than structured indoor settings, while coffee shops exhibited a non-significant upward trend.
Visual complexity showed the strongest positive correlation with cognitive load (r = 0.77), followed by social density (r = 0.61) and ambient noise (r = 0.60).
Model-predicted cognitive load demonstrated strong convergent validity with NASA-TLX self-reports across all conditions (r = 0.68–0.95).

Cite This Study

Rahimi et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a895eeeca7ade938187d1bd https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2026.2697165

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Implication

Experimental study demonstrates that outdoor and visually complex environments increase cognitive load during e-learning, highlighting the impact of physical context on digital education efficiency.

Cognitive load in e-learning: how different environments shape learning efficiency

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Cognitive load in e-learning: how different environments shape learning efficiency

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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