Interactivity and memory: Information processing of interactive versus non-interactive content

Abstract

a b s t r a c tExisting research on the effects of interactivity tends to treat it as a global characteristic of the interface. However, not all content on an interface is endowed with interactive features. Therefore, it is important to explore how interactivity affects the cognitive processing of those particular content that is presented with interactive features and the surrounding content without these features. With this objective, a between-subjects experiment was conducted to understand how levels of interactivity affect information processing among users of an e-commerce website. The major findings of the study are: 1) Higher interactivity enhances recognition as well as recall memory of interactive content, but diminishes recognition and recall memory of non-interactive content; 2) Individuals spend the least amount of time on the interface with high interactivity, while most of this time is spent on interactive part rather than non-interactive part of the interface; 3) A moderate level of interactivity attracts most user attention to product information. The findings about interactivity's effect have implications for cue-summation theory and limited capacity theory. The experiment's results also hold practical implications for e-tailers.

The Dilemma of User Engagement in Privacy Notices

“…Similar to the results of our study, Xu and Sunder [60] reported that interactivity encourages the processing of interactive content and compromises the processing of non-interactive content. In our study, user involvement with the content in Swipe, Checkbox, and DAD groups does not cover all the content but only the requested data and the data processing purposes.…”

Powered by Immersion? Examining Effects of 360-Degree Photography on Knowledge Acquisition and Perceived Message Credibility of Climate Change News

“…Regarding memory for story content, the results point to the latter: participants reported significantly lower levels of knowledge acquisition after reading a news text including a 360-degree photograph than after reading text alone. This finding indicates that the immersive image served as a distractor, seducing news consumers' attention away from the actual story (Van Damme et al, 2018), and depriving them of cognitive resources they would have needed to thoroughly attend, process, and store the information presented in the accompanying news article (Xu & Sundar, 2016). Since dragging around an omnidirectional image is considered a rather easy task, it is plausible that participants might had enough mental resources left for storing information (Boksem, Meijman, & Lorist, 2005), but simply lacked the motivation to carefully attend them.…”

“…Within this theoretical perspective, immersive media such as 360-degree photographs are viewed as complex stimuli that are difficult for individuals to encode, thereby tying up their limited cognitive resources and leaving insufficient capacities for the storage and retrieval of information (Xu & Sundar, 2016). Following Bucy (2004), it is assumed that enabling recipients to freely explore an omnidirectional shot generates higher levels of involvement, but at the same time over-stimulates the human information processing system.…”

“…This finding suggests that the mere presence of pictures, animation, or sound in a news article might not be sufficient; instead, individuals need to actively engage with an interface to assess the underlying content as more credible (Kiousis, 2006). As interactive visualizations have been shown to consume a considerable amount of cognitive resources (Xu & Sundar, 2016), it is also possible that they promote the credibility of information by inhibiting a thorough evaluation of the actual content (Slater & Rouner, 2002). However, adding additional layers of modality can also impede the positive judgment of media messages (Tran, 2015), indicating a curvilinear or ceiling effect.…”

Learning From News on Different Media Platforms: An Eye-Tracking Experiment

“…Previous work points out that when a website is more interactive, it can also increase absorption into the reading (Oh & Sundar, 2015), which has positive effects on information processing, and may even lead to higher favorability toward the content (Sicilia, Ruiz, & Munuera, 2005), and to higher recall and recognition (Xu & Sundar, 2016). Thus, research has shown that if a website is more interactive (e.g., contains more hyperlinks and requires more interaction from its users), citizens engage in more cognitive elaboration (i.e., making connections between news information and previous knowledge), which leads to increased recall of content (Tremayne & Dunwoody, 2001).…”