Sweller, a psychologist, who developed Cognitive Load Theory generally regards cognitive load as a burden on working memory and something to be reduced. The Common Core State Standard for Mathematics, as well as elsewhere, like to promote tasks with high cognitive demand.
"Cognitive demand" and "cognitive load" are different concepts in cognitive psychology. The "cognitive demand" of a task is how intellectually challenging it is. You might make a problem more cognitively demanding by making it less structured (e.g., you have to clarify the nature of the problem to solve), providing excess information that could distract us, or asking for an explanation about why an answer is true, rather than simply expecting the right answer with an algorithm.
While we're solving a problem, we need to keep in mind the facts of the problem, our goal, and possible strategies & procedures. We keep this information in mind with "working memory" and we call the amount we have in our working memory our "cognitive load." Unfortunately, we have a limited amount of working memory so we can only hold so much in mind while we solve a problem. For example, you probably can't figure out what 1.234 * 56.789 is in your head. It's not because it's cognitively demanding. Afterall, you know exactly what steps to do to get the answer. Instead it's too great a cognitive load: keep those two numbers in mind, while doing the multiplication algorithm, producing each number on a row that you'll eventually add, etc.
You might reduce your cognitive load while solving a cognitively demanding problem by, for example, creating external representations (e.g., writing down key information). And reducing the cognitive load is often an excellent decision in trying to solve a cognitively demanding problem. Hope this helps Annie!
Kevin
I love the previous answer. On short, cognitive load refers to the overall amount of mental effort used. Cognitive demand was defined before in some literature as: "The kind and level of thinking required of students in order to successfully engage with and solve the task". This is the shortest most concise answer I can think of. :-) Best of luck!
I am not entirely sure whether I agree that cognitive load refers to the overall amount of mental effort used, as mental effort is considered a reliable indicator of working memory capacity that is consumed by a learning task. So cognitive load provides an indication of how demanding a learning task is for someone, which is comprised of intrinsic load and extraneous load.
From what it sounds like, I think cognitive demand is very related to the concept of intrinsic load-- but not entirely similar, as pointed out before. Intrinsic cognitive load is generated by the materials to be learned and is imposed by the extent to which essential elements of information interact. If there are many interacting elements that are intrinsic to the task, intrinsic cognitive load is high, and subsequently, that study material is difficult to be learned. Intrinsic load also depends on one's prior knowledge: a task may impose high intrinsic load for a novice, but the same task canimpose low intrinsic load as expertise increases.
Just to add to the prior comments.
I agree with the simple description of both constructs by Kevin. It points clearly to their difference. For the definition of cognitive load, read:
Sweller, J. (1994). Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design. Learning and Instruction, 4, 295–312.
For the original definition of cognitive demand, read:
Smith, M., & Stein, M. (1998). Selecting and creating mathematical tasks: From research to practice. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 3(5), 344-350.
We are working in Valencia in a deep refinement and development of the cognitive demand theory, with some results already published.
I would say that the two articles below prove a more updated read of the state of cognitive load theory right now-- this is especially important because the definition of some of the types of load changed (and consequently the way it relates to the construct of cognitive demand), as well as because the model now typically describes two types of load instead of three:
Sweller, J. (2010). Element interactivity and intrinsic, extraneous and ger- mane cognitive load. Educational Psychological Review, 22, 123–138. doi: 10.1007/s10648-010-9128-5
Choi, H. H., Van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2014). Effects of the physical environment on cognitive load and learning: Towards a new model of cognitive load. Educational Psychology Review, 26, 225–244. doi: 10.1007/s10648-014-9262-6
To further add to this discussion (although I think the issue has been addressed by previous posts pretty comprehensively), I recently presented a conference paper entitled 'How challenging tasks optimise cognitive load'. I argue that challenging tasks (i.e., tasks which are cognitively demanding, and include enabling and extending prompts) can optimise intrinsic cognitive load and minimise extraneous cognitive load. This may offer another perspective on how the two constructs can be viewed as related yet distinct.
Here is a link to my conference paper:
Conference Paper HOW CHALLENGING TASKS OPTIMISE COGNITIVE LOAD
I agree with @Kevin above. Cognitive Load is a burden on working memory, basically working memory load taken on when completing a task.
Cognitive Load Theory describes 3 sub-categories of load called Intrinsic Load (the innate difficulty of the subject matter and task, which could be interpreted as Cognitive Demand), Extraneous Load (the load imposed by instructional materials and strategies) and Germane Load (the load imposed by information processing, schema acquisition and learning).
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