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Objective: To examine men's interpretations of graphical information types viewed in a high-quality, previously tested videotape decision aid (DA). Setting, participants, design: A community-dwelling sample of men;50 years of age (N = 188) balanced by education (college/non-college) and race (Black/White) were interviewed just following their viewing of a videotape DA. A descriptive study design was used to examine men's interpretations of a representative sample of the types of graphs that were shown in the benign prostatic hyperplasia videotape DA. Main variables studied: Men provided their interpretation of graphs information presented in three formats that varied in complexity: pictograph, line and ...

Mayer & Gallini (1990) hebben onderzoek gedaan naar het effect van het gebruik van pijltjes om in een instructief document tekst en beeld met elkaar te verbinden. Ze vonden dat de leerprestatie beter was wanneer de tekst met behulp van pijltjes was verbonden met de relevante delen van de illustraties dan wanneer de pijltjes niet aanwezig waren. In het onderzoek dat in dit artikel wordt beschreven, stond centraal wat het effect was van het gebruik van pijltjes op het verwerkingsproces. Daarbij werd gebruik gemaakt van oogbewegingsmetingen. Er waren drie condities: een conditie met allen tekst, een conditie met tekst en ...

An important objective in survey question design is to write clear questions that respondents find easy to understand and to answer. This contribution identifies the factors that influence question clarity. Theoretical and empirical evidence from psycholinguistics suggest that specific text features (e.g., low-frequency words (LFRWs), left-embedded syntax) cause comprehension difficulties and impose a high cognitive burden on respondents. To examine the effect of seven different text features on question clarity, an online experiment was conducted in which well-formulated questions were compared to suboptimal counterparts. The cognitive burden of the questions was assessed with response times. Data quality was compared in ...

The purpose of this experiment was to show a differential effect of two types of textual structures (causal and teleological) on text comprehension with subjects of different levels of expertise (novices, intermediates and experts) in a domain describing three functions of the text-editor Microsoft Word. We assumed an interaction between text structure and prior knowledge. Experts performed better than the two other levels of expertise, with the exception of cued recall, and this effect depended on the semantic text structure. Additionally, the results showed the existence of an intermediate effect in the recall of the causal text and emphazised the ...

We report the results of two experiments intended to study the effect of text format (compact, structured, or logigram) on the visual browsing of instructions, the realization of actions, & their memorizing. Studies have shown that text structure & visual information processing have an inverse relationship: the more structured the text the less acquisition of visual information. This suggests that the format of the procedural text can reinforce the perception of the causal structure of the problem. However, the results obtained on the level of the acquisition of information vary according to the problem to solve & the results concerning ...

Two experiments investigated alternatives to split-attention instructional designs. It was assumed that because a learner has a limited working memory capacity, any increase in cognitive resources required to process split-attention materials decreases resources available for learning. Using computer-based instructional material consisting of diagrams and text, Experiment 1 attempted to ameliorate split-attention effects by increasing effective working memory size by presenting the text in auditory form. Auditory presentation of text proved superior to visual-only presentation but not when the text was presented in both auditory and visual forms. In that case, the visual form was redundant and imposed a cognitive load ...

This study aimed to assess the impact of the visuospatial structure of a text on its cognitive processing (comprehension, memorization). Specifically it was designed to answer the question, What effect may variations in the visuospatial architecture of a text have on the degree of comprehension /memorization of the text? The central hypothesis is that typodispositional variations in the structure of a text (here playing instructions) will affect the interpretation & memorizing of the provided information. ...

Past studies of narrative text characteristics mainly focused on comprehension and memory of the contents stated explicitly, but not thematic inference. Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of the characteristics of narrative text on generation of thematic inference. In Experiment 1, a self-paced reading method demonstrated that an appropriate title facilitated comprehension of the theme of a text. In Experiment 2, the same titles for the texts were used, together with variation in the goal of the protagonist and outcome of the story. Results indicated that generation of thematic inference depended on the interaction between the goal of ...

Past studies of narrative text characteristics mainly focused on comprehension and memory of the contents stated explicitly, but not thematic inference. Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of the characteristics of narrative text on generation of thematic inference. In Experiment 1, a self-paced reading method demonstrated that an appropriate title facilitated comprehension of the theme of a text. In Experiment 2, the same titles for the texts were used, together with variation in the goal of the protagonist and outcome of the story. Results indicated that generation of thematic inference depended on the interaction between the goal of ...

This study examines the role of linguistic and paralinguistic importance markers in expository texts in controlling the reader's comprehension activity. 32 adult volunteers, subdivided into 4 groups of 8, were assigned 4 different versions of an expository text. The target sentence was called to the S's attention either through a linguistic signal (a preceding sentence) or a paralinguistic signal (underlining of part of the target sentence). Results show that importance signals mobilize the reader's high-level representation activity and facilitate his/her overall textual comprehension. ...