I am a theater geek. I love musicals. And road trips are made for listening to soundtrack after soundtrack and belting out tunes.

Last week, my dogs and I decided to check out Savannah (OK, I decided to check out Savannah, and they came along for the trip). With 9 hours in the car each way (thanks traffic!) I had a lot of time to think, listen, and sing.

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about how to expand John Sweller’s instructional design Cognitive Load Theory to apply it in a more global manner (beyond instructional design/education). Many hours of driving later, I think I’ve come across an easy multi-media way to explain it.

Under Sweller’s Cogntive Load Theory, if material is presented in such a way that the lesson’s load is too high or too low, the educational objectives will not be met: too low, and the information isn’t engaging enough; too high, and processing stops. Cognitive load of the material is based on intrinsic load (how complicated is the material), extrinsic load (how much mental power is needed because of how the material is presented), and germane load (how much effort is the individual putting into learning the material). [There’s also a whole part to the theory about Working Memory, and how, when demand on working memory exceeds capacity of working memory, processing slows or stops, resulting in cognitive overload. But I will save that for another post.]

What does any of this have to do with musicals?

The musical Hamilton, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is the hottest ticket, by far, in New York City right now. For one show in June, tickets were going for thousands of dollars each. When tickets go on sale, Ticketmaster’s website cannot keep up and they are all gone almost immediately. Why? It is a musical about a Founding Father. It is based on an 800+ page book by Ron Chernow, which never received nearly the amount of acclaim that Miranda’s musical version has.

From a cognitive load theory standpoint, the musical is far more likely to educate than the book is.

Leaving aside the artistic license taken by Miranda, viewers of the musical are much more likely to retain a greater portion of the material than readers of the book. Why is this? It is the same story (though the book is significantly more detailed); the intrinsic load of the material in both forms of presentation are approximately the same. We will pretend here that people who see the musical or read the book are equally interested in learning the material (though this is very likely a faulty assumption; there are many other reasons to go see a popular musical, and very few other reasons to invest the time into an 800 page book), making the germane load approximately equal.* The main difference, then, is the extrinsic load.

The musical is a modern translation of Hamilton’s life. Rather than concerning himself with replicating Hamilton’s tone or the culture of the day, Miranda uses hip hop, rap, and slang to tell the story. Conversely, Chernow uses direct quotes from the individuals involved and complex sentence structure and vocabulary throughout, generally targeting a much narrower audience. Anyone can watch Miranda’s telling and learn something; Chernow, with 800+ pages of text and footnotes, and 36 hours for the Audible version, requires far more focus to understand, learn, and retain the information.

The musical combines the first two chapters – 34 pages, or an hour and forty-five minutes in the Audible version – into a 4 minute song, performed this year at the Grammy’s:

It’s pretty easy to understand why 4 minutes would be easier to remember than almost two hours. But is it just the bevity? Is it just the addition of music?

No. It’s also the choice of language.

Unless you are reading Shakespeare (and I was going to use an example here from the Shakespeare spoof Something Rotten, also now on Broadway, but it seemed to get too convoluted), the exact words chosen to express a sentiment can either provide confusion or clarity. Using a $10 word when a 2¢ word will do unnecessarily increases the extrinsic load of the information. Using extra multi-media effects – such as fade-ins and outs in a PowerPoint presentation – that do not add to the story has the same effect.

At all times, it is essential to remember the goal of presenting information: if it is to inform, it is vital to properly balance intrinsic and extrinsic load (and, as much as possible, germane load). This is the case whether the goal is to educate or to provide soldiers with vital intelligence information. Poor information design contributing to cognitive overload is just as bad as, or worse than, too little information. And has long-term effects on each individual’s cognitive health.

* Someone with very low germane load – no interest in learning the material – will not learn it, even in the musical form, because they are, essentially, choosing not to. Nothing in the design or presentation of material can overcome the barriers an individual can put up to decide not to learn.