Abstract
When comprehending multimedia documents, readers face the problem of establishing co-reference between texts and pictures. We hypothesized that cues inserted in animations may reduce the co-reference problem by providing timely updates in the visual display. Students were asked to study an explanation of the four-stroke engine in three different formats. Compared to a spoken explanation alone, an explanation of the four-stroke cycle improved comprehension, recall and inferencing in novice students. A multiple picture version with visual cues, however, failed to make any difference compared to the baseline condition. We suggest that cues may be useful only to the extent that students already possess a visual representation of the verbal referents.
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Hidrio, C., Jamet, É. (2008). Learning from a Multimedia Explanation: A Comparison of Static Pictures and Animation. In: Rouet, JF., Lowe, R., Schnotz, W. (eds) Understanding Multimedia Documents. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73337-1_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73337-1_6
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