According to cognitive psychologist Allan Paivio’s Dual-Coding Theory, the human brain processes information through two separate channels: visual and verbal. When you watch Peppa Pig with English subtitles, you feed both channels simultaneously. You hear the word (auditory verbal), see the word (visual verbal), and see the action (visual non-verbal). This triple-threat approach drastically increases cognitive retention. Decoding the "Stream of Sound"
Perhaps most impressively, Warren further noted that with subtitles turned on, in just one year, children would "read" the same number of words contained in all the Harry Potter, Narnia, and Lord of the Rings books combined, plus everything Roald Dahl ever wrote. peppa pig english and subtitles english better
When you use Chinese subtitles, your brain automatically takes the "path of least resistance"—reading Chinese to understand the meaning while treating the English audio as background noise. This is passive entertainment, not active learning. This is passive entertainment, not active learning