What contributes to the split-attention effect? The role of text segmentation, picture labelling, and spatial proximity

Florax, Mareike; Ploetzner, Rolf

doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2009.02.021

Cited by 120 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Prior research has mainly focused on two established objective measures (e.g., Florax & Ploetzner, 2010;Sweller & Chandler, 1994): time used and task accuracy. Cognitive studies have already used the time needed for the task at hand as a dependent variable (Chandler & Sweller, 1991, 1992.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To measure the effect of forwarded email threads, I presented the participants with comprehension tasks that cognitive science studies have used extensively to measure the split-attention effect (e.g., Florax & Ploetzner, 2010;Sweller & Chandler, 1994). To adapt the comprehension tasks to the context of emails threads, I presented the questions to the participants before presenting the text.…”

Section: Experimental Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why Forwarded E-Mail Threads are Hard to Read: The E-Mail Format as an Antecedent of E-Mail Overload

Sobotta¹

2016

CAIS

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Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experimental Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Forwarded E-Mail Threads are Hard to Read: The E-Mail Format as an Antecedent of E-Mail Overload

Sobotta¹

2016

CAIS

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“…The reader of the document should be able to focus on both the text passage and the relevant visual without having to turn pages or having to switch between distant locations on a page. According to [33], learning improves when multiple sources of information are presented in a spatially integrated format rather than separately, because the users do not need to split attention between both sources of information or search for specific information in two different places.…”

Section: Interrelations Between Text and Visualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like the variety observed in visuals in the previous subsection, textual references can come in various forms. The connection between text and visual can be created through a repetition of visual symbols, elements or words in both text and visual, or it may be created in a less explicit way through textual cues [13], [33]. This variability will be explored more systematically in our study presented in the next section.…”

Section: Interrelations Between Text and Visualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Efficiently Connecting Textual and Visual Information in Operating Instructions

Tenbrink

Maas

2015

IEEE Trans. Profess. Commun.

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Research problem: Most technical documents rely on a combination of text and visuals to communicate their messages. To achieve the desired effect of improved processing and comprehension of operating instructions, the text must guide readers in a clear way to the relevant visual information in order to avoid ambiguity and misinterpretation, and to ensure that the reader optimally benefits from the available information. Research questions: (1) How are textual and visual information combined in operating instructions so as to guide the user's attention precisely toward the relevant parts of a household appliance? (2) In what ways can ambiguity arise, and what kinds of strategies can be used to avoid miscommunication and conceptual problems? Literature review: Operating manuals are usually procedural instructions that tell the user how to set up an appliance, how to operate and maintain it, and how to solve any problems. The vast majority of operating instructions are multimodal in that they include visuals of some kind. But previous research has shown that visual representations of instructions can be just as difficult to interpret as textual instructions -especially if the visuals come without textual elaboration. A combination of text and visuals provides opportunities for taking advantage of both by balancing the other mode's limitations. Methodology: Our exploratory qualitative study of a small set of operating instructions identifies and classifies types of references to visuals in the documents, enriched by interviews with the technical writers of these manuals. Besides showing patterns of reference types, we examine the potential ambiguity of some types of references along with strategies to avoid communication failure. Results and Conclusions:We identified 10 distinct ways in which links from text to visuals can be established. Line drawings were referred to more than visuals showing display content. The clarity of the link between text and visuals may be affected by the use of spatial expressions (such as left/right) that presuppose an underlying perspective, as well as by the use of semantic and functional information that is not readily accessible to laypersons. Ambiguity can be avoided by using clearly defined labels, specific perceptual information, and by repetition of visual elements in the text. Also, overspecification can be useful for enhancing communication. We conclude that technical writers need to attend to the links between text and visuals so as to support the users effectively, avoiding ambiguity by purposeful strategies. Because our study is qualitative and analytic, implications are limited by the scope of our study, and by the lack of empirical user comprehension studies.

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2011

E‐Learning and the Science of Instruction

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What contributes to the split-attention effect? The role of text segmentation, picture labelling, and spatial proximity

Cited by 120 publications

References 22 publications

Why Forwarded E-Mail Threads are Hard to Read: The E-Mail Format as an Antecedent of E-Mail Overload

Why Forwarded E-Mail Threads are Hard to Read: The E-Mail Format as an Antecedent of E-Mail Overload

Efficiently Connecting Textual and Visual Information in Operating Instructions

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