What Remains in Mind? Effectiveness and Efficiency of Explainers at Conveying Information

Abstract

Whether and to what extent mass media contribute to the acquisition of knowledge depends fundamentally on the senses addressed by a particular medium. However, there is a lack of current research investigating the effectiveness and efficiency of (new) media, like scrollytelling and explainer videos, at conveying information, compared to established formats like text and audio. To fill this research gap, I conducted an experimental online survey (N = 381) with medium as the independent variable (explainer text vs. audio vs. video vs. scrollytelling) and the recall of information as the dependent variable. The subjects were presented with a popular scientific presentation on the environmental consequences of meat consumption in order to examine a socially relevant, controversial topic and to explore the possible consequences of dissonance on recalling information. As the present study demonstrates, the traditionally lower reputation of moving images in regard to the effectiveness of information transfer is not always justified. Rather, the results show that scrollytelling and video lead to a significantly more extensive recall than audio and in part text media. However, when considering exposure time, text turns out to be the most efficient medium. The dissonance perceived by the participants did not have any significant influence on their recall of information.

Between Evidence and Emotions: Emotional Appeals in Science Communication

“…• EmoƟonal messages and • scienƟfic storytelling (Lidskog, Berg, Gustafsson, & Löfmarck, 2020) • EmoƟons in NGO-and • industry documents (Simon, 2020) • EmoƟons in science • media coverage (Huber & Aichberger, 2020) • EmoƟons towards • science/scienƟsts (Humm, Schrögel, & Leßmöllmann, 2020) • EmoƟons as moƟve (Niemann, BiƩner, Schrögel, & Hauser, 2020) • EmoƟons during and • aŌer recepƟon (Reif, Kneisel, Schäfer, & Taddicken, 2020;Schneiders, 2020;Taddicken & Wolff, 2020) Janich ( 2020 What feels good is valuable and worth striving for (see also Pham, 2007). In addition, because individuals know that their emotions are strongly correlated with their values, they assume this is also the case with other people (Bromme & Gierth, in press).…”

“…Building on the idea of feelings of cognitive dissonance in connection with information processing, Schneiders (2020) presents results of an experimental study. He demonstrates that feelings of cognitive dissonance do not affect people's recall of information.…”

VISHIEN-MAAT: Scrollytelling visualization design for explaining Siamese Neural Network concept to non-technical users

“…A user's position could also trigger multimedia events like video playback, animation, and transitions-a dynamic interplay of text, visuals, and music. In addition, the study in [21] shows that scrollytelling and video provide much more memory than audio and, to a lesser extent, text media, which is suitable for non-technical users.…”

First-Person Versus Third-Person

“…Facilitated fluency of processing, in turn, is assumed to foster easy comprehension, improve the evaluation of a narrative and promote persuasive effects (Bullock et al, 2021;Pennington & Hastie, 1991). Furthermore, it is assumed that information is transmitted more successfully through explainer videos because these videos maintain prolonged attention in comparison to audio formats or texts (Schneiders, 2020).…”