Multimedia learning is the common name used to describe the cognitive theory of multimedia learning This theory encompasses several principles of learning with multimedia.

This term has been used to refer to different phenomena. In Richard E. Mayer's cognitive theory of multimedia learning it is one of several design principles for multimedia instruction . More principles are listed below. The modality principle states that materials which present both verbal and graphical information should present the verbal information in an auditory format (and not as written text) . There is an on-going debate on both the mechanisms underlying this effect , and on boundary conditions of the effect .

Theoretically, the modality principle is based on a model of working memory by Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch who proposed that working memory has two largely independent subcomponents that tend to work in parallel - one visual and one verbal/acoustic.. This gave rise to dual-coding theory, first proposed by Allan Paivio and later applied to multimedia by Richard Mayer. According to Mayer , separate channels of working memory process auditory and visual information. Consequently, a learner can use more cognitive processing capacities to study materials that combine auditory verbal information with visual graphical information than to process materials that combine printed (visual) text with visual graphical information. In other words, the multi modal materials reduce the cognitive load imposed on working memory.