- The amount of information that people can retain in working memory is defined in terms of psychological units, like perceptual groups produced by the classical perceptual grouping laws. We can hold in working memory only about four such units (meaning information exceeding this number wouldn’t be reasonable to have on a slide).
- In general, humans can track the movement of around four units at the same time.	
- Eliminating the need to search for labels. For example, by directly labeling items in a display rather than using a key. This reduces processing load.
- Audience members need time to process the information that is presented. Switching slides too quickly with too much information is unreasonable for the audience. 
- However, if slides fade-in or fade-out very slowly, the audience members may organize them incorrectly and then have to break their initial organization, which also requires effort. 


The Principle of Limited Capacity’s Corollaries

The P.L.C. states that people have a limited capacity to retain and process information, and won’t understand a message if too much information needs to be memorized and processed. 

Ohio State University, Columbus

When viewing a sequence of slide, the audience primarily will encode what they see, and if they fail to encode material, it may as well not even exist. The follow three principles cover encoding processes in this context: Discriminability, Perceptual Organization, and Salience.

Encoding Processes

Kosslyn, S. M., Kievit, R. A., Russell, A. G., & Shephard, J. M. (2012, July 17). PowerPoint® Presentation Flaws and failures: A psychological analysis. Frontiers. Retrieved September 22, 2022, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00230/full 

PowerPoint® Presentation Flaws and Failures: A Psychological Analysis

Classical grouping “Laws” specify the perceptual conditions that guide viewers to see elements in a single group. For example, people tend to group together elements that are nearby (The Law of Proximity). Similarly, we group together elements that appear similar (The Law of Similarity). 

Other Information Processing Laws

The P.D. means that two properties (such as two colors, degrees of gray, or sizes) can’t convey different information unless they differ by a large enough proportion to be easily distinguished. 

The Principle of Discriminability 

The P.P.O. entails that people automatically organize elements into groups, which they then attend to, and remember more accurately. 

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