Static and animated graphics in learning from interactive texts

Abstract

Animating the graphics in electronic documents may increase readers’ willingness to study them but may impair or distort the processes of gist comprehension. Experiment 1 confirmed that, compared with static diagrams, animation increased readers willingness to study a range of graphic genres (maps, time-lines, drawings of unfamiliar objects). Total reading time was also increased but readers’ differential access of static and animated graphics confounded the interpretation of immediate and delayed retention tests. Experiment 2 contrasted the effects of accessing the graphics before or during reading. Scores on a quiz immediately after reading were significantly higher when the graphics were seen before rather than during reading, suggesting that readers found it difficult to integrate the graphics while still building the gist of the text. Scores on both an immediate and a delayed quiz were significantly higher when the graphics were static rather than animated. One pointer to the cause of the decrement with animated graphics was that the quiz performance of readers having animated graphics correlated with their scores on a picture memory test, whereas those of readers with static graphics did not. In contrast the delayed quiz scores of readers with static graphics showed a significant interaction with their performance on a digit memory task. Readers with high scores on digit memory benefited from accessing the graphics while reading, but readers with low scores on the digit test were impaired by such access during reading. This suggests that the cognitive skills needed for integrating text with animated graphics may differ from those needed for dealing with static graphics.