Abstract
Previous work on learning from text has demonstrated that although illustrated text can enhance comprehension, illustrations can also sometimes lead to poor learning outcomes when they are not relevant to understanding the text. This phenomenon is known as theseductive details effect. The first experiment was designed to test whether the ability to control one’s attention, as measured by working memory span tasks, would influence the processing of a scientific text that containedseductive (irrelevant) images, conceptually relevant images, or no illustrations. Understanding was evaluated using both an essay response and an inference verification task. Results indicated that low working memory capacity readers are especially vulnerable to the seductive details effect. In the second experiment, this issue was explored further, using eye-tracking methodology to evaluate the reading patterns of individuals who differed in working memory capacity as they read the same seductively illustrated scientific text. Results indicated that low working memory individuals attend to seductive illustrations more often than not and, also, for a longer duration than do those individuals high in working memory capacity.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Baddeley, A. D, &Hitch, G. J. (1974). Working memory. In G. H. Bower (Ed.),The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 8, pp. 47–89). New York: Academic Press.
Balluerka, N. (1995). The influence of instructions, outlines, and illustrations on the comprehension and recall of scientific texts.Contemporary Educational Psychology,20, 369–375.
Bauer, M. I., &Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1993). How diagrams can improve reasoning.Psychological Science,4, 372–378.
Benton, S. L., Kraft, R. G., Glover, J. A., &Plake, B. S. (1984). Cognitive capacity differences among writers.Journal of Educational Psychology,76, 820–834.
Carpenter, P. A., &Shah, P. (1998). A model of the perceptual and conceptual processes in graph comprehension.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied,4, 75–100.
Conway, A. R. A., Cowan, N., &Bunting, M. F. (2001). The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: The importance of working memory capacity.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,8, 331–335.
Conway, A. R. A., &Engle, R. W. (1994). Working memory and retrieval: A resource-dependent inhibition model.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,123, 354–373.
Conway, A. R. A., &Kane, M. J. (2001). Capacity, control and conflict: An individual differences perspective on attentional capture. In C. L. Folk & B. S. Gibson (Eds.),Attraction, distraction, and action: Multiple perspectives on attentional capture (pp. 349–372). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Daneman, M., &Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,19, 450–466.
Garner, R., Brown, R., Sanders, S., &Menke, D. J. (1992). “Seductive details” and learning from text. In K. A. Renninger, S. Hidi, & A. Krapp (Eds.),The role of interest in learning and development (pp. 239–254). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Garner, R., Gillingham, M. G., &White, C. S. (1989). Effects of “seductive details” on macroprocessing and microprocessing in adults and children.Cognition & Instruction,6, 41–57.
Gernsbacher, M. A., Varner, K. R., &Faust, M. E. (1990). Investigating differences in general comprehension skill.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,16, 430–445.
Goldman, S. R. (1997). Learning from text: Reflections on the past and suggestions for the future.Discourse Processes,23, 357–398.
Goldman, S. R., Hogaboam, T. W., Bell, L. C., &Perfetti, C. A. (1980). Short-term retention of discourse during reading.Journal of Educational Psychology,72, 647–655.
Harp, S. F., &Mayer, R. E. (1997). The role of interest in learning from scientific text and illustrations: On the distinction between emotional interest and cognitive interest.Journal of Educational Psychology,89, 92–102.
Harp, S. F., &Mayer, R.E. (1998). How seductive details do their damage: A theory of cognitive interest in science learning.Journal of Educational Psychology,90, 414–434.
Hegarty, M. (1992). The mechanics of comprehension and comprehension of mechanics. In K. Rayner (Ed.),Eye movements and visual cognition: Scene perception and reading (pp. 428–448). New York: Springer.
Hegarty, M., &Just, M. A. (1993). Constructing mental models of machines from text and diagrams.Journal of Memory & Language,32, 717–742.
Hegarty, M., Kriz, S., &Cate, C. (2003). The roles of mental animations and external animations in understanding mechanical systems.Cognition & Instruction,21, 325–360.
Just, M. A., &Carpenter, P. A. (1992). A capacity theory of comprehension: Individual differences in working memory.Psychological Review,99, 122–149.
Kaakinen, J. K., Hyönä, J., &Keenan, J. M. (2003). How prior knowledge, WMC, and relevance of information affect eye fixations in expository text.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,29, 447–457.
Kane, M. J., Bleckley, M. K., Conway, A. R. A., &Engle, R. W. (2001). A controlled-attention view of working-memory capacity.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,130, 169–183.
Kane, M. J., &Engle, R. W. (2000). Working-memory capacity, proactive interference, and divided attention: Limits on long-term memory retrieval.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,26, 336–358.
Kane, M. J., Hambrick, D. Z., Tuholski, S. W., Wilhelm, O., Payne, T. W., &Engle, R. W. (2004). The generality of working memory capacity: A latent-variable approach to verbal and visuospatial memory span and reasoning.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,133, 189–217.
Kintsch, W. (1980). Learning from text, levels of comprehension, or: Why anyone would read a story anyway.Poetics,9, 87–98.
Kintsch, W. (1988). The use of knowledge in discourse processing: A construction-integration model.Psychological Review,95, 163–182.
Kintsch, W. (1998).Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kintsch, W., &van Dijk, T. A. (1978). Toward a model of text comprehension and production.Psychological Review,85, 363–394.
Larkin, J. H., &Simon, H. A. (1987). Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words.Cognitive Science,11, 65–100.
Mayer, R. E. (1994). Visual aids to knowledge construction: Building mental representations from pictures and words. In W. Schnotz & R. W. Kulhavy (Eds.),Comprehension of graphics (pp. 125–138). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Mayer, R. E. (1999, April).When multimedia works: Designing multimedia for meaningful learning. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal.
Mayer, R. E., &Gallini, J. K. (1990). When is an illustration worth ten thousand words?Journal of Educational Psychology,82, 715–726.
Radvansky, G. A., &Copeland, D. E. (2004). Working memory span and situation model processing.American Journal of Psychology,117, 191–213.
Rosen, V. M., &Engle, R. W. (1997). The role of working memory capacity in retrieval.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,126, 211–227.
Schiefele, U. (1999). Interest and learning from text.Scientific Studies of Reading,3, 257–279.
Turner, M. L., &Engle, R. W. (1989). Is working memory capacity task dependent?Journal of Memory & Language,28, 127–154.
Wade, S. E. (1992). How interest affects learning from text. In K. A. Renninger, S. Hidi, & A. Krapp (Eds.),The role of interest in learning and development (pp. 255–277). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Wade, S. E., & Adams, B. (1989, March).The effect of interest on sensitivity to importance and learning. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco.
Waters, G. S., &Caplan, D. (1996). The capacity theory of sentence comprehension: Critique of Just and Carpenter (1992).Psychological Review,103, 761–772.
Wiley, J. (2003). Cognitive and educational implications of visuallyrich media: Images and imagination. In M. Hocks & M. Kendrick (Eds.),Eloquent images: Writing visually in new media (pp. 201–218). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wiley, J., Mason, R. A., &Myers, J. L. (2001). Accessibility of potential referents following categorical anaphors.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,27, 1238–1249.
Wright, P., Milroy, R., &Lickorish, A. (1999). Static and animated graphics in learning from interactive texts.European Journal of Psychology of Education,14, 203–224.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This article is based on a thesis submitted to the University of Illinois at Chicago in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the M.A. degree for the first author. The research was generously supported by Grant N000140110339 from the Office of Naval Research to the second author. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of this institution.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sanchez, C.A., Wiley, J. An examination of the seductive details effect in terms of working memory capacity. Memory & Cognition 34, 344–355 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193412
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193412