static and animated graphics in learning from interactive texts

European Journal ofPsychology ofEducation/999, Vol. X/V, nO> 2.203-224c /999, l.S.P.A.

Static and animated graphics in learning frominteractive texts

Patricia 'WrightCardiff University, U'K.

Robert MilroyAnn LickorishMRC APi!, Cambridge, u.s.

Animating the graphics in electronic documents may increasereaders' willingness to study them but may impair or distort theprocesses 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 ofunfamiliar objects). Total reading time was also increasedbut readers' differential access of static and animated graphicsconfounded the interpretation ofimmediate and delayed retention tests.Experiment 2 contrasted the effects ofaccessing the graphics before orduring reading. Scores on a quiz immediately after reading weresignificantly higher when the graphics were seen before rather thanduring reading, suggesting that readers found it difficult to integratethe graphics while still building the gist of the text. Scores on both animmediate and a delayed quiz were significantly higher when thegraphics were static rather than animated. One pointer to the cause ofthe decrement with animated graphics was that the quiz performance ofreaders having animated graphics correlated with their scores on apicture memory test, whereas those of readers with static graphics didnot. In contrast the delayed quiz scores ofreaders with static graphicsshowed a significant interaction with their performance on a digitmemory task. Readers with high scores on digit memory benefited fromaccessing the graphics while reading, but readers with low scores onthe digit test were impaired by such access during reading. Thissuggests that the cognitive skills needed for integrating text withanimated graphics may differ from those needed for dealing with staticgraphics.

The inclusion of illustrations in a text can have complex effects on readers. For example,it has been found that readers' confidence increases although their recognition accuracy

The authors would like to express their appreciation to Anna Perez and Natasha Flores for assistance in collectingthe data and the Medical Research Council for funding this research.

204 P. WRIGHT,R. MILROY, &. A. LICKORISH

declines if the material involves several similar pictures (Chandler, 1994). The advent ofmultimedia documents enables animated as well as static graphics to be included in aninteractive document. This may offer advantages in an educational context but it also addsseveral new dimensions to the problems of understanding the cognitive effects thatillustrations have on readers. Animations can serve different educational purposes and candiffer in the amount of interactive control that readers have. Even the way in which peoplenavigate to and from adjunct materials in electronic documents can raise or lower thedemands made on memory (Wright & Lickorish, 1994).

There is evidence that people can benefit from watching procedures being carried out, sothis kind of animation can be useful in training materials (Payne, Chesworth, & Hill, 1992).However, there is also evidence that animation can result in superficial processing by readers(Palmiter & Elkerton, 1993). This shallowness may be related to the phenomenon reported byWade, Schraw, Buxton, and Hayes (1993) who found that there were circumstances in whichreading strategies could be "seduced" by textual details that, though unimportant,nevertheless captured attention. It is possible that animated graphics are very seductive in thissense because visual movement is known to be highly attention-getting (Hillstrom & Yantis,1994). They may also be motivating for students, although a more positive mood does notnecessarily improve students thinking and reasoning (Oaksford, Morris, Grainger, &Williams, 1996). An increasing amount of educational material is being made availablethrough electronic documents, from CD ROMs to intranets and the World Wide Web. So it isimportant to know whether readers benefit from the inclusion of animated graphics in textswhere they are not essential or a static graphic would be adequate. Of course, training inprocedures may be a special case since the actions or their consequences may be difficult todescribe verbally or with static pictures. The portrayal of dynamic processes may be anotherspecial case although schematic diagrams can communicate very effectively to some readers(Hegarty, 1992) but even here important individual differences have been reported (Hegarty,Just, & Morrison, 1988).

It is always difficult to know how generalisable are the findings from any research withillustrations (Larkin & Simon, 1987; Mayer & Gallini, 1990). Different kinds of text tend touse different illustrative genres. For example, Butler (1993) pointed out that whereas thegraphics in student textbooks were mostly pictures (e.g., line drawings or photographs), theillustrations in academic journals were mostly data graphics. Lohse, Walker, Biolsi, andRueter (1991) proposed a taxonomy of five categories of illustration (icon, map, network,diagram, graph/table) based on the data from a sorting task that people undertook, but Lohseet al., acknowledged that their study explored structural similarities and that functionalsimilarity could yield different groupings because even within a single graphic category thepurpose of an illustration can vary. When the graphic expands on the textual information, thismay pose problems for readers because of the potential tension between integrating theverbal content at the higher discourse levels and understanding the details shown graphicallyat a more focused level (Bennett & Flach, 1992; Albrecht & O'Brien, 1993; Lorch, 1993).

Another use of graphics is to repeat textual content but encourage readers to adopt adifferent perspective on that material. Kintsch (1994) has emphasized the value of readersactively working with the material. So graphics that encourage a change of viewpoint maypromote useful cognitive activity. This could be particularly helpful for readers with smallerworking memory spans who may experience much more difficulty in changing perspective(Lee-Sammons & Whitney, 1991).

Graphics can also provide a synthesising overview. This is particularly helpful where thelinearity of written text makes it difficult for readers to visualise the temporal course ofconcurrent processes (Glenberg & Langston, 1992; Glenberg & McDaniel, 1992). There isevidence that increasing the graphicacy of computer programming code helps readersappreciate temporal and causal interdependencies (Green, I982a,b). Given this diversity in thefunctions that graphics can serve it is essential that explorations of the cognitive activities ofreaders' interpretation of graphics need to be carefully situated. An excellent example of suchwork is that of Kieras (1992) on the interpretation of engineering diagrams. There is a need formore such studies dealing with other kinds of illustrations and with animated as well as staticdisplays.

STATIC AND ANIMATED GRAPHICS 205

The studies reported below focus on issues relating to the effects of animatingillustrations in narrative texts. One issue concerns whether animation increases readers'willingness to look at illustrations. Another issue concerns whether it influences theprocesses of discourse integration. The issue of readers' willingness to look at graphicsconsists of tWD separable questions concerning if and when. Elsewhere it has been shown thatreaders can have strong views on what information they do not wish to read (e.g., Wright,Creighton, & Threlfall, 1982; Wright 1988). This reluctance may extend to some kinds ofillustrations. So including a range of graphic genres in research studies helps to establish thebounds of generalisability of the findings. Because the amount of verbal material within thegraphic may be critical, this is varied across the three categories of graphic illustrationincluded in the following studies: (a) a highly verbal, one dimensional "time-line"; (b) a twodimensional line drawing of a map showing the relative positions of about a dozen namedplaces within a geographic region; (c) a line drawing of an unfamiliar object (e.g., aburgander) having only a brief verbal caption naming the object.

The effects of graphics in texts may depend on when during the reading period peoplelook at them. This is an important question for the designers of interactive documentsbecause these allow more control of readers' access to the graphics than has been possiblewith printed texts. Studies of printed materials have shown that readers often separate theactivities of perusing text and graphics even when the author had hoped otherwise and evenwhen both information sources are on the same page (e.g., Whalley & Flemming, 1975).Several factors may contribute to this reading strategy. For example, readers who pause tolook at diagrams are then faced with the difficulty ofre-finding their place in the text in orderto resume reading. Electronic documents, where the graphic is just a click away, can make iteasier for people to get back to the location they left. However, cognitive factors mayinfluence the: ease with which readers can switch among representational forms, whetherforming integrated or separated mental representations of the information. It may bedifficulties of this kind that discourage readers from integrating graphics and text as theyread. Kruley, Sciama, and Glenberg (1994) found that a spatial STM task, involving therecognition of dot patterns, tended to injure readers' memory for a text that had pictures butnot for a text without pictures. This suggests that the pictures qualitatively changed the formof the mental representation that readers were creating. Several theorists have proposed thatthe inclusion of illustrations in a text results in an additional form of coding taking place, onerepresentation for the text and another for the pictures (e.g., Peterson, Kulhavy, Stock, &Pridemore, 1991; Gambrell & Jawitz, 1993; Mayer, Steinhoff, Bower, & Mars, 1994). Creatingthese separate representations may be more easily done by readers dealing with one category ofinformation at a time rather than by those seeking to integrate across representations.

Studies of individual differences in reading and other cognitive abilities have providedevidence that integrating information from different sources, e.g., text and pictures, issometimes a problem. Waddill and McDaniel (1992) noticed that although simple picturescould increase readers' memory for the item depicted, the inclusion of a complex picture wasonly helpful to skilled readers. So it is possible that there may be two separable factors, onerelating to skill at dealing with the verbal aspects of text and one relating to the ability tointerpret diagrammatic representations. This would imply that the ability to handle animatedgraphics cou.ld be even more demanding of people's pictorial interpretation skills. Hegartyand Steinhoff (1994) have shown that readers who have a low spatial working memory tendto be worse at interpreting diagrams. It might therefore be expected that different strategiesfor integrating text and pictures are adopted by people who differ in visuospatial workingmemory. People with lower visuospatial working memory may be less likely to interrupt theirreading to view graphic materials.

For electronic documents, readers' willingness to access illustrations will also beinfluenced by characteristics of the interface itself Two of the key interface features will bethe method by which readers can display the graphic, and the spatial relation on the screenbetween the graphic and the main text. Among the evidence that both factors influencereaders' strategies is a study showing that readers more often paused and inspected graphicsif visually salient markers were included within the text denoting that explanatory

206 P. WRIGHT, R. MILROY, & A. LICKORISH

information was available rather than being told to click on words whose meanings wereunfamiliar (Black, Wright, Black, & Norman, 1992). Another study found that people weremore likely to use information from another part of a document when that information wasdisplayed in a window which did not occlude the main text (Wright, Lickorish, & Milroy,1994). In the present experiments for technical reasons it was not possible to display thegraphics in a separate window. Although this constraint may increase the reluctance ofreaders to look at the graphics it also increases the opportunity of examining whether thatreluctance is reduced by animation.

Experiment 1

The main question being asked in Experiment I is whether the availability of animatedgraphics in narrative text will have any cognitive effects that differ from those of staticgraphics. In particular, the study will examine whether animation influences readers' accessto the graphics andlor their understanding and remembering of the text. Four predictions canbe made concerning the comparison with static illustrations:

I. Animation will increase the probability that readers look at graphics, and this increasewill occur throughout a range of graphic genres (maps, time-lines, pictures ofunfamiliar objects).

2. Animation will change people 's reading strategies and as a consequence may prolongthe time spent studying the narrati ve. The features of this modification to readingstrategy will vary across graphic genres which differ in whether they encourage readersto form separate or integrated mental representations of the text and graphics.

3. Animation will infl uence discourse processing adversely, as shown by performance ona quiz immediately after reading the narrative. This impairment will be greater forreaders with relatively poor visuospatial working memories.

4. Animation will enhance retention of the graphic material, as shown by performance ona delayed quiz . This enhancement will be greater for readers with relatively goodvisuospatial working memories.

Method

Design. An independent groups design was used to examine readers ' performance inthree treatment conditions involving narratives with No Illustrations or with Staticillustrations and or with Animated illustrations. As a check on the comparability of thereaders in these groups, a small battery of cognitive tests was administered before the readingtasks began. This also enabled analysis of the relation between memory for verbal andpictorial materials and for the narrative discourses used in the experiment.

Participants. 60 women from the volunteer panel of the Applied Psychology Unit werepaid for taking part and were randomly allocated to one of the three experimental groups. Themean age and range was comparable across groups (No Illustrations M=39.5 years , SD=10.1,range 19-54 years ; Stat ic illustrations, M=39 .6 years , SD=14.I , range 20-58 years, Animatedillustrations M=39.8 years, SD=1 t.6, range 23-59 years).

Materials. All materials, including the pre-learning covariate measures, the experimentaltexts , and the two post-learning qu izzes , were presented on a monochrome screen as blacktext on a white ground using the application HyperCard. Participants responded using amouse to click on information shown on the screen.

The experim ental texts. The verbal narratives. There were eight narratives, each abouthistoric events that occurred at specific locations within the British Isles. All narratives were


about 430 words long (range 424443) and the text was displayed on three screen pages. Eachnarrative was preceded by a title page and followed by an end page. In order to reduceinterference between the narratives, the topics alternated between "British castles" and"villages in East Anglia", a local region for these participants. The name of the castle orvillage served as the title of the narrative. The narratives were always presented in the sameorder because the comparisons of interest were between groups. The data from the first twotexts were discarded as practice and the analysis was based on the remaining six narratives.Typical text pages and the graphics accompanying them are shown in Appendix A2-A4.

Within each text, except for the No Illustration group, readers could click words thatwere followed by a superscript spot". This click replaced the text with an illustration. Belowthe illustration was a Return button which took readers back to the text page they had left.After each narrative the end page asked people whether they wished to re-read all or part ofthe story. Buttons on the end page enabled readers to look again at any of the graphics.Another button allowed them to proceed to the quiz (see Appendix A5).

The graphic categories. Accompanying each text were 3 categories of illustration(except for the No Illustrations group). These graphic categories differed in content, in theamount of narrative to which they related and in the proportion of text and graphics theycontained (see below). This content confounding seemed inevitable but was not felt to beserious given that the main comparisons of interest were between experimental groups. Eachpage of text offered access to only one illustration, and each graphic category appearedequally often on the first, second and third pages of the narrative. The three kinds ofillustrations gave information about WHERE, WHEN and WHAT events had taken place. InExperiment I where spots denoting the availability of an illustration were placed beside arelevant word, the content of the sentence would often afford strong cues about the kind ofillustration to expect.

The static illustrations. The WHERE illustrations gave a map of the geographicallocation with familiar places labelled. The verbal text also gave some indication of where theevents took place. For the narratives about castles the graphic gave an outline map of eitherScotland or England and Wales, with key towns shown that were not mentioned in the textbut provided general location cues. There was also a marker showing the location of thecastle. For the narratives about villages, the map depicted the region around the village withsome key towns and rivers shown. Again a marker indicated the location of the village.

The WHEN illustrations were almost entirely verbal. They gave a chronological list ofseveral key events mentioned in the narrative. This list was displayed as a vertical line withthe relevant dates written to the left of the line and short details of the event written to theright. The spacing of the rows of text roughly indicated the length of time between the events ,i.e. the closer in time the events took place the closer together were the rows of text. TheWHEN illustrations only referred to information that was mentioned in the text, but at thepoint where readers saw the illustration they might not have read about all the events shown.

The WHAT illustrations, depicting an object mentioned in the text, were entirelynon-verbal apart from a short caption of two or three words above the picture. All itemsdepicted in WHAT illustrations were fictitious, in the hope of encouraging readers to accessthe illustration, so they added information that was not explicit in the text. The text mightmention fish, but only the illustration would indicate what kind of fish.

The animated illustrations. Care was taken that the animations did not introduce anyinformation not given with the static illustrations. Each animated sequence lasted 2-5s, andonce started could not be stopped. When the animation ceased, the illustration remained inview as a static display but could be replayed as often as readers wished by clicking theReplay button (see Appendix A Figure A2). Again readers returned to the verbal text byclicking the Return button below the illustration.

For the animated WHERE illustrations, the map was at first presented showing only thelocation of the place in the narrative but no other towns; then a few major towns were addedin three more stages. The animation sequence took 5s.

208 P. WRIGHT, R. MILROY, & A. LlCKORlSH

For the animated WHEN illustrations, the text shown first was that for the key eventmost closely related to the point of departure from the text. At the same time all the datesappeared to the left of the vertical line. Subsequently (in either three or four steps, lasting intotal approximately 5s) an extra event was added until four or five of the events mentioned inthe text were visible. Across the six narratives, the chronological order depicted by theanimation was varied.

For the animated WHAT illustrations, the item illustrated moved. It swayed to and fro ifit was vegetation; it slid (rather than walked) a short distance across the screen if it was aliving creature. These animation sequences took 2s.

Preliminary measures for all groups. Because of the importance of individualdifferences in influencing the: reading strategies people adopt, a range of cognitiveperformance measures were taken at the start of the experiment. Four aspects of cognitiveperformance were of particular relevance to reading these interactive narratives: mousingability, since people might be more reluctant to access graphics if they had difficultiesclicking targets on the screen; memory for both verbal and pictorial material; ability to readthe screen display easily. The tests are described below in the order in which they were done- i.e., the two memory tests wen: separated. Everyone did these preliminary tests in the sameorder.

Mousing practice. The screen showed six to twelve numbered boxes and participantswere asked to click the boxes in numerical order as quickly as they could,. Highlighting gaveimmediate feedback when the correct box was clicked. People were welcome to repeat any ofthe patterns as often as they wished. There were four trials with the boxes arranged indifferent patterns on each . The time taken on the final trial gave an index of mousing ability.

Digit span. A sequence of numbers in the range 1-8 appeared successively for 500ms inpositions to the right of each other in a horizontal window on the screen . Across six trials thesequence length varied from four to eight digits, with the shorter sequences being at thebeginning and end of the series . After the final digit in a sequence, the screen displayed auniform pattern for 2s, then showed a row of eight numbered buttons. Below these buttonswas a row of empty boxes, one box for each of the digits in the previous sequence. Clicking abutton displayed the corresponding number in the leftmost empty box. Participants wereasked to reproduce the numeric sequence they had just seen. Below these boxes an "Oops"button allowed people to clear all the boxes and start again . Performance was theconventional measure of the number of trials completely correct (max=6).

Proof-reading. A short text (200 words) was presented on screen as a single page.Readers were told to find and click on the ten typographical errors in the text, and wereforewarned of a brief comprehension quiz given immediately after the 10th mistake had beenfound. The performance measures were the time to find the typographic errors and quizscore. These measures were intended primarily to assess ease of reading from the screenrather than evaluating reading comprehension in any depth.

Picture memory. From four to eight simple line drawings of familiar objects werepresented simultaneously for 7s in a random spatial array of rectangles. Then the screendisplayed a uniform pattern and 2s later the rectangles, but not the drawings, re-appeared.One of the drawings was now shown at the top of the screen and people were asked to clickthe rectangle in which this picture had previously been seen. No feedback was given aboutthe correctness of any answers. On each of six trials only four pictures were presented foridentification, even though more were sometimes shown in the original display. Differentpictures were used on every trial.The performance measures were the accuracy and thelatency of identifying each picture . The first trial was discarded as practice, so the maximumaccuracy score was 24.

Post-learning assessments. Two quizzes were devised and both were presentedinteractively on the computer screen. The first, an early quiz, was done immediately afterreading each narrative.The purpose of this quiz was to encourage readers to attend to themeaning of the text. It consisted of 5 multiple choice questions, the answers for which were


all embedded in the text itself, and access to the illustrations was not necessary to answer thisquiz.This was essential in order to examine how animation influenced readers willingness toaccess the illustrations because otherwise readers' looking strategy would have beendetermined by their anticipation of the quiz. Only the WHEN illustrations could have been ofassistance in answering the questions on the early quiz since they recapitulated eventsmentioned in the text. For each question in the early quiz there was a choice of three clickableanswers, one of which was "don't know". As soon as an answer had been clicked the nextquestion was presented. No feedback about correctness was given.

A later quiz was given after all the narratives had been read and readers had done anintervening unrelated task which took 15-20mins. The quiz began with two questions, one oneach of the practice narratives that were disregarded in the analysis. This was followed by 24questions covering the six experimental narratives. Each question offered a choice of fivemultiple choice answers, one of which was "don't know". The 24 questions were divided intofour blocks, each block containing one question for each of the six narratives. Within eachblock the order of the narratives varied, and blocks were presented straight after each otherwithout any pause. For each narrative there was a question about the text, and one questionon each illustration. The WHERE question presented the appropriate map with four possiblelocations for the place marked. The WHAT question presented the illustration of the objectand asked where it lived or grew, with four possible places listed as answers (i.e., titles of thenarratives read). For the group that had No Illustrations, the graphic was presented togetherwith its name (e.g., Burgander).

In a final debriefing, people were asked to rate their prior knowledge of the events andareas that were presented in each of the narratives. If some participants already knew thecontent of certain narratives, it might have been appropriate to replace them. For obviousreasons people could not be asked whether they knew the content before reading it.

Procedure. Readers were seated at a table on which was an A4 screen and a mouse. Itwas explained that they would be able to practice using the mouse and then would have avariety of different kinds of activities before starting the main part of the experiment. Thefour preliminary measures were then taken (mousing skill, digit memory, proof reading,picture memory).

The instructions explained that participants would be asked to read short stories on thescreen until they felt confident enough to answer a brief quiz immediately after each storiy.The method of moving from page to page was explained, as was the method for accessing theillustrations - i.e., clicking words that had a • beside them. For 15-20mins after all eightnarratives had been read, participants undertook an unrelated task before completing the laterquiz and a debriefing questionnaire.

Results

The four preliminary measures (mousing skill, digit span, proofreading, picture memory)showed no statistically significant differences among the three experimental groups. Thedebriefing measures showed the groups also did not differ in estimating their prior familiaritywith the topics of the narratives, although in all groups people reported more familiarity withnarratives about local Villages than with the Castles. The results will be presented below inthe order of the four predictions made earlier.

Did animation influence willingness to look at illustrations? Table I shows thatalthough people looked at most illustrations, there was a tendency for some readers to ignorecertain graphic categories, and this tendency was reduced by animating the pictures(X2(1, N=40)=5J 0, p<.05). People might have ignored WHERE maps because they thoughtthey knew the location referred to in the text, but this cannot be the case for WHATillustrations which were ignored with similar frequency.


Table I

The frequency that illustrations were NOT looked at, shown by graphic category (max cellvalue for each category=6n= 120) and by participant (max per group =20)

Graphic Category Static Animated

When 6 0

Where 16 4

What 19 3

Total 41 7

% max 11.4% 1.9%

People ignoring any graphic 12 4

% max 60.0% 20.0%

Did animation influence study time? The groups differed in the time taken to completethe narratives (see Table 2) (F(2,57)=8.11, p<.OOI). However, the No Illustrations group(215.2 s) was not faster than those having Static graphics (245.5s) (F(2,57)=1.93, ns). Thosewith Static graphics were faster than those having Animated graphics (302.1 s) (F(2,57)=6.66,p<.OOI). This time difference arose both from the time spent looking at the illustration andthe time spent reading the text.

If people paused during their text reading to look at the graphic this would result in agreater number of "looks at the text page" being recorded because from the illustration theyreturned to their departure point. A criterion "dwell time" was used to determine whetherfurther reading of this page took place after viewing the graphic. If people read the entirepage before looking at the graphic, then there might be no further reading on return to thispage and the number of looks might be similar to that in the group having No Illustrations.Table 2 shows that both the static and animated illustration groups tended to make more textpage looks than the No illustration group. This suggests that they looked at the illustrations asthey encountered the markers in the text. However, table 2 also shows that readers havingAnimated illustrations spent 17% longer reading the text than did readers having Staticillustrations but this difference was not statistically significant.

Table 2 also shows that the inspection time for illustrations varied with the graphiccategory. In both the Static and the Animated groups people spent longer looking at thetime-line than they did studying the map, and spent even less time looking at the drawing ofan unfamiliar object. For each graphic category more time was spent looking at Animatedthan at Static graphics (all comparisons were significant on Binomial tests (p<.01) indicatingthat the effect was shown by almost every person. Only for the comparisons of times to studyspecific animated graphics did as many as three of the 20 people in the group show thereverse effect). Because the viewing times were much longer than the duration of theanimation, these data seem unlikely to be an artefact of the presentation conditions.

Table 3 shows how time on each text page varied with the graphic category accessedfrom that page (or the corresponding page for the No Illustrations condition). This tableshows that for each graphic category, animation increased the time spent on the text pagecompared with static illustrations. However, this difference was statistically significant onlyfor the WHAT category (analysis by two-tailed, unrelated t tests: WHEN t(38)=1.43, ns;WHERE t(38)=1.78, p<.08; WHAT t(38)=2.37, p<0.02). It can be seen that the percentageincrease in time due to animation tended to rise as the graphic became less verbal and morepictorial.

STATIC AND ANIMATED GRAPHICS

Table 2Total study time and its distribution across text and graphics pages

21I

Mean looks at each text page 1.7

Looks at graphics per narrative

Total study time (s)Time on text pageTime on all graphics

When

Where

What

No Illust.

215.271.7

*

Static Animated

245.9 * 302.1

69.5 81.5

37.5 * 57.5

21.9 30.4

10.5 19.2

4.7 7.6

2.4 2.8

3.5 4.1

Note. • indicates statistically significant differences between adjacent row items.

Table 3

Time spent on text pages as a function ofthe graphic accessiblefrom that page

Text page associated % RISE fromwith illustration No Illust. Static Animated static to anim

When 77.4 76.2 86.3 13.3%

Where 72.6 68.2 79.0 15.8%

What 65.2 64.0 79.3 23.9%

M 71.4 69.5 81.5

Did animation influence quiz performance? The additional time that the Animated groupspent studying the narratives could be worthwhile if it resulted in higher quiz scores, buttable 4 shows that this was not the case on either the early (F(2,57)= 1.18, ns) or the later(F(2,57)=0.14, ns) quizzes although there was a significant difference between the Castlesand Villages with questions about the castles being answered more accurately(F(I,57)=17.83, p<.OOI). The data are summarised in Table 4 where the breakdown bynarrative topics (castles and villages) shows no consistent pattern between the group havingNo Illustrations and that having Static illustrations. Since the questions of the early quizfocused on the text and not on the illustrations this is not surprising. However, for bothcastles and villages, the group with Static illustrations tended to score less on the early quizbut more on the later quiz than the group having Animated illustrations.

The inevitable differences in content among the three categories of illustration, andtherefore among the questions relating to these categories, has already been mentioned. Table4 shows that accuracy on the later quiz questions was comparable for the three graphiccategories when the narratives had no illustrations, suggesting that the questions were ofsimilar difficulty. However, when the narratives included illustrations, the performance of theAnimated group on WHAT questions (35.8%) which were the most pictorial and least verbal,was much less accurate than on either the WHERE (51.7%) or the WHEN (61.7%) questions.(Binomial tests, two-tailed: WHERE N=13, x=l, p<.Ol; WHEN N=16, x=5, p=.2, ns). Thisdrop in accuracy on WHAT questions is also seen in the Static illustration group but did notreach statistical significance (Binomial tests, two-tailed: WHERE N=I4, x=6, ns; WHENN=15, x=5, ns). These data suggest that including graphics within a text influenced readers'memory and hence their performance on the later quiz.


Table 4

Accuracy on both the early and later quizzes

No Illust. Static Animated

Early quiz M correct (max=30) 22.5 22.7 24.2SD 4.5 4.0 3.3Early quiz % correct 74.8 75.8 80.8Castles % correct 77.3 80.7 84.7Villages % correct 72.3 71.0 77.0

Later quiz M correct (max=24) 12.9 13.2 12.5SD 4.0 4.6 4.4Later quiz % correct 53.8 54.8 51.9Castles % correct 50.4 57.9 52.9Villages % correct 57.1 51.7 50.8

Illustration questionsWhen % correct 50.8 59.2 51.7Where % correct 51.7 56.7 61.7What % correct 51.7 45.8 35.8Text questions % correct 60.8 57.5 58.3

Analysis of performance on questions referring to illustrations that had been ignoredshowed that most of the ignored illustrations resulted in wrong answers on the later quiz(65.8% were wrong in the Static group; 100% in the Animated group). The Static illustrationgroup most frequently ignored the WHAT graphics, and only 15.8% of these questions wereanswered correctly on the later quiz. This suggests that people were not ignoring theillustration because they already knew what it would show, although it remains possible thatthey may have thought that they did even though their knowledge was not sufficiently preciseor detailed.

Was quiz performance related to individual differences in memory skill? Spearman RankOrder correlations between the quizzes and the memory tests showed two interestingrelationships. For the No Illustrations group, performance on both the early and later quizzeswas correlated with digit span (early quiz rs=.67, z=2.92, p<.OI; later quiz r8=.46, z=1.98,p<.05). No such correlation occurred for either of the other groups. However for theAnimated group, performance on the later quiz correlated with scores on the picture memorytest (r8=.60, z=2.61, p<.OI). This suggests that different representational skills may have beenrequired for processing the narratives that had animated illustrations.

For all three groups there was a significant correlation between performance on the earlyquiz and on the later quiz (No illustrations r8=.64, z=2.78, p<.OI; Static r5=.61, z=2.66,p<.OI; Animated r5=.48, z=2.11, p<.05). This reflects the fact that people with good skills atdiscourse comprehension are likely to do well on both tests. There were no significantcorrelations with familiarity at using computers, at least in so far as this was reflected in themousing skills measured here.

Discussion

These data confirm that readers are often unwilling to look at illustrations and that thisreluctance is reduced by animating the graphics. However, there were marked individualdifferences among readers, some of whom viewed all the graphics. The correlation data

STATIC AND ANIMA TED GRAPHICS 213

showed a relation between quiz performance and digit span when there were no graphics, buta significant relation between quiz performance and picture memory when the graphics wereanimated. This difference within the correlation data suggests that the inclusion ofillustrations may have encouraged readers to adopt different representations for thesenarratives compared with texts having no illustrations.

Animation was not found to have any statistically significant effect on quiz performance,but in both the castles and villages narratives there was a tendency for scores to be lower onthe later quiz when the illustrations were animated. It is difficult to know from the presentstudy whether any effect on quiz performance results from the animation encouragingspecific visuospatial representations or indirectly through the animation encouraging readersto view more graphics and so interupt their reading of the text more often. Experiment 2seeks to further explore the effects of graphics on quiz performance but will use an electronictext that more explicitly directs readers when to look at the graphics. If this overcomes thedifferential access to static and animated graphics, then the effects of the animation itself onquiz performance can be assessed.

Experiment 1:

Given that the findings of Experiment I suggest that animation may have deleteriouseffects, it is important to ascertain whether, if it exists, this is due to readers storing anadditional graphic representation with their mental code of the narrative, or whether it is theprocess of creating the mental representation of the graphic during reading that causes thedifficulty. This question was addressed in Experiment 2 by having groups who saw thegraphics either before or while reading the text. If the problem arises from the existence ofboth verbal and visuospatial representations then access location will not matter, but ifproblems arise from processing the graphic in the midst of building a discourse structure forthe narrative, then performance may be better when the graphics are seen before the text isread. Contrasting the effects of static and animated graphics enables examination of the samefour predictions as were made for Experiment I.

Method

Design. A 2x2 independent groups design was used, with one factor being themovement in the illustrations (Static or Animated) and the other factor being the accesslocation of the illustrations (During or Before reading the text).

Participants. 64 women from the volunteer panel of the Applied Psychology Unit werepaid for taking part and were randomly allocated to one of the four experimental groups. Theages of the participants were similar to those in Experiment I (Before+Static M=43.9 years,SD=10.9, range 22-58 years; Before+Animated M=42.9 years, SD=I1.4, range 20-57 years.During+Static M=42.6 years, SD=13.4, range 21-59 years; During+Animated M=42.4 years,SD=9.5, range 19-54 years). None had taken part in Experiment I.

Materials. The main changes made to the materials used in Experiment 1 related to thebuttons for accessing the illustrations. These were modified to encourage all groups to accessthe graphics. For the groups accessing the illustrations During reading, the large black spotsdenoting the availability of illustrations were replaced in the text by a short parentheticalinstruction e.g., (see WHAT). On the right hand side of the screen were three vertical buttonslabelled from the top WHERE, WHEN, WHAT (see Appendix B2). Clicking these buttonsdisplayed the illustration used in Experiment 1. However, now readers knew with greatercertainty what kind of illustration to expect, and if they wished they could access all threeillustrations from any page.

For the groups viewing the illustrations Before reading, the buttons were removed fromthe right hand margin and included on the title page (see Appendix B1). The instructionswere also modified to encourage readers to examine the illustrations available before reading.


For all groups the narrative was followed by an end page that told people they could re-readall or part of the story if they wished (see Appendix B3).

Procedure. The test procedure was identical to that used in Experiment I: preliminarymeasures of cognitive skills were taken; each narrative was followed by a short early quiz;approximately 20 min later was a more extensive quiz.

Results

There were no statistically significant differences among the groups on any of the fourpreliminary tests (mousing, digit span, proofreading, picture memory). Nor was there adifference in people's estimated familiarity with the topics of the narratives prior to readingthem in the experiment as indicated by the debriefing questionnaire although, as inExperiment 1, people were more familiar with the narratives about local villages than withthe castles. The results of the data analysis will be summarized with respect to the same fourpredictions made for Experiment 1.

Did animation influence willingness to look at illustrations? Table 5 shows that mostpeople complied with the instructions to look at the illustrations Before reading the text.More people ignored illustrations when these were available During reading(X2(I, N=64)=6.18, p<0.02) but there was no replication of the finding in Experiment 1 thatreaders were more likely to ignore graphics which were Static rather than Animated. Theverbal instruction in the text telling readers to look at a particular graphic, has over-ridden theeffect of the graphic itself. Pooling across all groups, the category of illustration most likelyto be ignored was WHAT, as it had been in Experiment 1, but the frequency of ignoringillustrations is now so low that these data are too thin for meaningful analysis.

Table 5

The frequency that llustrations were NOT looked at, shown by graphic category (max cellvaluefor each category=6n=96) and by participant (max per group =16)

Before Reading During Reading

Graphic Category Static Animated Static Animated Total %

When 0 0 2 3 5 1.3%Where 0 0 3 4 7 1.8%What 0 5 4 5 14 3.6%

Total 0 5 9 12% max 0.0% 1.7% 3.1% 4.2%

People ignoringany graphic 0 2 6 5% max 0'% 12.5% 37.5% 31.3%

Did animation influence study time? Table 6 shows that people spent more time on thenarrative when they accessed the illustrations During (262.8s) rather than Before (222.2s)reading (t(62)=2.44, p<.02). The effects of animation on the time taken on text pages werenot significant. This casts doubt on the observation of Experiment 1 that animation resultedin longer reading times. It was noted earlier that there could have been a possible confoundwith the page content since the previous Static and Animated groups differed significantly intheir likelihood of looking at the graphics.

Inspection times for the different graphic categories showed a similar pattern to


Experiment 1, and was similar for all four groups, with the time-line being studied for longerthan the map, which was studied for longer than the line-drawing of an unfamiliar object.There was never more than one person in a group who failed to show the effect (i.e., for eachgroup on a two-tailed Binomial test p<.O I)

Table 6

Total study times on text and graphics pages in each condition


Static Animated Static Animated

Total study time (s) 219.0 225.3 275.4 250.1Time per text page 58.9 60.2 78.6 68.5Time on all graphics 42.3 44.7 39.6 44.7When 25.3 24.3 21.9 23.5Where 11.2 13.7 11.8 15.0What 5.9 6.7 5.8 6.2

Looks at each text page 1.5 1.7 2.9 2.8Looks at each graphic 1.2 l.l l.l l.l

The time spent reading the text pages associated with different graphic categories isshown in Table 7. When the illustrations were seen Before reading the text, these readingtimes were not affected by whether the graphics were Static or Animated. When theillustrations were seen During reading, there was no significant effect on reading time but thetrend apparent in Experiment I is now reversed and the static illustrations appear to beassociated with longer reading times. This suggests that the findings of Experiment I mayhave arisen from the content confounding mentioned previously that resulted from differentlooking strategies. The present comparability in times spent viewing the graphics means thatif any decrement in quiz performance is found for the Animated group, this cannot arise fromdifferent periods away from the text.

Table 7

Mean time spent on text pages as a/unction a/the graphic accessible/rom that page

Text Page Associated Before Reading During Reading

with Illustration Category Static Animated Static Animated

When 59.9 63.0 76.9 72.8Where 58.2 60.5 74.5 67.8What 58.4 59.4 84.4 64.8

TotalM 58.8 61.0 78.6 68.5SD 19.0 21.5 24.6 24.4

Did animation influence quiz performance? Performance on the early and late quizzes issummarised in Table 8. Analysis of Variance confirmed that on the early quiz, scores were


higher for castles than villages (F(l ,60)=25.2, p<.OO 1) and higher when the illustrations wereStatic (F(l,60)=4.029, p<.05) and higher when the illustrations were seen Before rather thanDuring reading (F(l,60)=4.029, p<.05). However, on the early quiz the effect of animationwas significant only for the castle narratives (F(l,60)=5.92, p<.02) where quiz performancewas poorer for the groups having Animated graphics. The trend was in the same direction forthe villages narratives but was not statistically significant (F(l,60)=1.24, ns).

Performance on the later quiz showed no main effects when all four groups werecombined in the same analysis but the expected decrement with animated graphics was foundwhen the analysis was confined to readers viewing the illustrations During reading (earlyquiz F(I,30)=3.48, p<0.07; later quiz F(l,30)=3.97, p<.05). The decrement was apparentwith both the castles and the villages narratives. The decrement was also apparent for allcategories ofquestions.

Table 8

Accuracy on both the early and late quizzes after reading the texts


Static Animated Static Animated

Early quiz M correct (max=30} 25.7 24.9 24.9 22.2SD 2.6 2.7 3.7 4.6Early quiz % correct 85.7 83.0 83.0 74.0Castles % correct 90.0 86.7 89.3 78.0Villages % correct 81.3 79.3 76.7 70.0Later quiz M correct (max=24) 15.6 15.6 16.1 12.8SD 3.5 3.1 4.6 4.7

Later quiz % correct 65.0 65.0 67.1 53.3Castles 70.8 65.6 72.9 56.3Villages 59.4 64.6 60.9 50.5

Illustration questionsWhen % correct 62.5 65.7 67.7 55.2Where % correct 68.8 71.8 76.0 57.3What % correct 59.3 58.3 52.2 44.8Text questions % correct 69.8 64.7 71.8 56.3

Was quiz performance related to individual differences in memory skill? Spearman RankOrder correlations between the two quizzes (early and later) and the two memory tests (digitsand pictures) showed patterns similar to those obtained in Experiment 1, where a significantcorrelation (rs=.6) was found only when the graphics were Animated and only between thelater quiz and picture memory. In Experiment 2 this correlation was significant for both theAnimation groups (Before rs=.52, z=2.25, p<.02; During rs=.64, z=2.65, p<.OI). Neithergroup had significant correlations with digit span on either early or later quiz. In contrast, forthe two groups having Static illustrations, the only correlation reaching significance wasbetween performance on the later quiz and digit span' for the group seeing graphics Duringreading (rs=0.58, z=2.25,p<.02). It may be remembered that in Experiment I, digit span hadcorrelated with both early and later quiz performance for the group having No Illustrations.So texts with Static illustrations and No Illustrations seem to recruit the same cognitive skillsfrom readers.

Another way of examining the effects of individual differences is to subdivide within


experimental groups, separating readers with high and low scores on the initial memory tests(Table 9). Doing this for the groups having Static illustrations revealed a significantinteraction between digit memory and performance on the later quiz (F(l,28)=7.34, p<.OI)such that looking at the illustrations during reading helped those with high digit scores buthampered those with low scores. There were no similar interactions with performance on theearly quiz, nor when the groups were split on the basis of performance on the picture memorytask (interaction with later quiz, F(I,28)=2.l6, ns). The corresponding analysis based on asubdivision within the groups having Animated graphics showed no significant interactionswith either digit or picture memory.

Table 9

Accuracy on the later quiz as a function ofdigit span performance

High digit span (>2 trials correct)Low digit span «2 trials correct)

Discussion

n

9

7

Static Before

% correct

62.169.2

n

106

Static During

% correct

75.452.9

Experiment 2 has supported most of the findings from Experiment 1 with the exceptionof the effect of animation on increasing readers' willingness to study the graphics. However,the interface was deliberately changed to make access more likely when the graphics werestatic. This manipulation appears to have been successful and shows that issues about accessto graphics cannot be decontextualised. The likelihood of such access can be criticallyinfluenced by writers and information designers.

The deleterious effects of animation, that in Experiment 1 were evident only in studytimes, are now seen in lower scores on the quizzes after reading. Experiment 2 showed thatthe impairment in performance was removed when readers studied the graphics beforereading the text. This suggests that the cognitive problems are caused by the interruption tothe reader's process of constructing a mental representation of the discourse structure, andnot to the existence of both verbal and visuospatial representations. This reasoning predictsthat there will also be no performance decrements from animation if the graphics areaccessed after reading the text. Testing this prediction requires further research.

Experiment 2 has also confirmed that graphics in texts have differential effects onreaders who vary in their cognitive skills. The correlations reported in both experimentssuggest that readers who did well on the picture memory test were those who gained mostfrom the animations. Although of considerable theoretical interest, the practical implicationof this finding seems less clear. Perhaps in interactive documents the graphics could bydefault be static with a reader-controlled option to animate them. This would enable thereaders least helped by the animations to avoid them, although given the apparent increasedwillingness to look at animated graphics (Experiment I) it is by no means certain that thisoption would be successful.

General Discussion

The data from these two experiments establish several points of practical significance.Most importantly they show that if people encounter animated graphics during the course ofreading an interactive text, then this can impair their retention of the verbal material they arereading, perhaps a consequence of a poorer initial understanding of the material. Certainly


the present findings urge great caution in the way graphics, particularly animated graphics,are integrated with texts. For printed materials the recommendation is to have the graphics asclose to the referring text as possible (Mayer et al., 1994) but this proximity does notconstrain readers to interrupt their reading to view the graphic. The findings from Experiment 2suggest that in electronic documents it is better to separate the viewing of graphics from thereading of the text.

The second point of practical importance concerns readers' willingness to view graphicsthat accompany text, a reluctance that may now seem well-founded given the deleteriouseffects observed in both experiments. Experiment 1 showed that animation increasedpeople's willingness to view graphics, but Experiment 2 showed that this increasedwillingness could also be achieved by including explicit instructions in the text telling readersto view a specific graphic. So readers' viewing behaviour is highly labile and easilyinfluenced by features of the graphic itself and of the verbal text. For this reason,generalisations about access need to be made with caution.

The findings from both studies support the importance of exploring different graphiccategories. For the purpose of the present investigations three fairly ad hoc categories weredevised, differing in the amount of verbal text they contained and answering the qualitativelydifferent questions WHEN, WHERE, WHAT. Although similar trends in the main effects ofanimation were observed across all graphic categories, the magnitude of the effects,particularly the deleterious effects on study time and text retention, were greatest for theWHAT graphics which were the most pictorial and least verbal. The reasons for this cannotbe established from the present studies. The time-lines repeated information given in the text,and some of the locations given on the map would have been highly familiar to readers. So itis not possible to assess how much the factors of novelty and of representational formcontributed to the differential effects of these graphic categories. However, such questionsare amenable to further research.

Another characteristic of the graphics used in these experiments is that they added verylittle new information to the verbal text content. The data reported by Hegarty and Just(1992) using static diagrams suggests that this repetition reduces the effects of individualdifferences in ability. Also and perhaps crucially, the animation was not depicting a dynamicsystem. So care should be taken when general ising from these findings to other graphiccategories and other uses of graphics. It is not being suggested that animation is always andinevitably a bad thing. The findings do however challenge the assumption that animation is agood thing (e.g., because readers enjoy it) and should therefore be used at every availableopportunity.

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Appendix AAn example ofthe jive screen pages usedfor presenting narratives in Experiment 1

The next story is about

Beaumar-is cestte

Appendix AI. A typical title page for Experiment 1

BEAUMARIS p2.f 5

6eaumarls wos the last of the great cesttes built in Woles by KIngEawertll. Wol1< sterted on the cestle in 1295 end the telents ofmore than 2,50(l people were combined to creel. it. The bu11dingactivity was supervised by Jomes of 5t GeorgeWho. es Mester ofthe King's Work's in Weles, hod everett responsibHity for <till theWelsh castles. Beeumaris was to be oneof his flnes\.

At this period. lhe eno of the thirteenth century, the threat ofrebellion in Wa'!es hed receded. Llewelyn. who hodbeen one Of themost potent forces opposing the comtnetton of Englond,wes nowdeoa. The latest rising had beenby Prince Modoc·, but this hodbeen successfully crushed.

However. this ,,,.omlse of neece did not meen tnet the defencesCOUld be skimped upon. Onthe contrary, English kings hOd manyenemies both ot home and ecrcec.

Some events ot 8eoumorts

121'4r- Uprtsing by Prince Madoc crushed12!1Sf-Start building the cesue

131.5'- Addition of outer well with twelve towers

16""16 f- Defended by Royelists in Civil ¥lor

( Ropoot S09uonco1)

Appendix A2. A typical text page and the associated WHEN graphic

STATIC AND ANIMATED GRAPHICS

BEAUMARIS

.Jemes bu1lt an tmmenselU atron9 COncentric ctl$tle with wella 15feet tnlck. surrounaedby e meet. Heerecteo two messl"eqetencuses, one taelng the sn, ttle ~ther h!c\"g 1n\enCtel guerd'epproecnes eCif'OS$ the nenet stref ts.

Twenty yeors teter en outer wen wes &Oded which wos not SDthIckes the inner ring Dul ned more lOW8r$ (rom which to defend thewell. 'Therewere onlysix towers: onthe Innerweu, but there weretwelve on the outer wall. The outer wen c\$o heJjtwo getehouses.

~n:e~ :~i::tr~:~~~:l~:~~:~~e~nu~~~~~sot~~';hs:i~:~ed meet

These eletmrete defences were never put to the test In Edward'sre\gn. Indeed, one woMers how InYaclerswould hove attempted tobr-eecnthe two sets of wells of IIcestta Which,in tlleory at le!l~\.

wee Imeregnoble.

( neneet seeuencev)

Appendix A3. A typical text page and the associated WHAT graphic

221

BEAUMARIS ,40( 5

In \646, durIng the Civil Wer, the cestte we, I! Royolist strongholdunder the commend of Lora BUIl<eley. As might be expected, thedefenders hod IJreIJered for a longsiege. Howe....er, they SoongeveUp. They lost heert when they heard thet ceemervcn hodecrrercereo ond the Royeltsts h&d beendefeotednearby

TMsswrenner wee rortunete for p(lstenty. Beeumerts nassurvived to the present de.'d ,1most Intect. It te probably ental"',finest e)(Omple of e concentric castle. Anotherfeature of sc;aeclllllinterest Is tne emeu ttma-westrec cnepe!with Its ....euueo ceiling.

The cesue Is on the north side of the little town of l3eCluml2rls onthe l$lon(l of Anglesey·, ThiSis very close to the bridge across theNenoi strette, wl'ltchmokn \t a favour\t8 tleunt for tourists in theholidl!ly season. Indeed the name Beaumorls means "beautifulmersn".

The locllo\10n 01 8eauMarls

( Repeat sequence?)

Appendix A4. A typical text page and the associated WHERE graphic


IE lUI

Thet Is ell the tnrormettcn .v.il.ble here on Beeumerls castle.Vou .re welcome to reed any Drall of It .galn.Just CliCkan one of the errcws belOW to ge\ beck to the story,

When you ers reedy to t'ke the Quizplease click the QU1Z button shown below on the right.

NB: Sel.c\lng an answer In the Quiz will tek. you straight to thenext Question, so leke cere before you click on an enswer.

.., Tellne , •••

Q T....t .....~10 ttuiz

Appendix A5. A typical end page for Experiment 1

Appendix BAn example ofthe way graphics were accessed in Experiment 2

The next story i5 ebout

Beaumerts cestte

Youvi!l find it helpful before\Ioustllrtto lookat tits informationevetleble by(:l1tl>:'l19 the buttons belo....

Appendix Bl. A typical title page for Experiment 2

BEAUMARI~; p3 or 5

James built en Immensely strong concentric castle with w.lIs 15teet thtck, surrounded by 0 moot. Heerected two messtveget.hous.s. one facing the see, the other feclng Inlend 10 guerdapproaches ecross the Nenel strerts.

Twenty years leter an outer wall wes .dded whIch was not so thickas the inner rIng but hed more towers from whIch to defend thew.lI. There were only six towers an the Inner w.lI. bullhe'. weretwel.e on the oUler well. The outer wall also h.d Iwo getehou$Os.Oneor Which !/u.rde. e smell dock in the cestte's se.-Ie. rnoetwhere Atlan\lc grunn.l could b. ceugh\ on e high l1de (see Whet?).

These elcborelte uefences wereneverput to the test in Edward'sreign. Indeed,. onewonders howtnyoders wouldhaveattempted tobreech Ihe 1"'0 sels 01 wells of a cestts which,ln theory et tasst.WI!lIS lmpregmlble.

Appendix B2. A typical text page for Experiment 2

STATICAND ANIMATED GRAPHICS

Thal ts alllhe Informationavailablehere onlleaumarlscaslle.You are welcometo read anyor all of jl again.Jusl click ononeof lhe arrows belowto gel backto lho slon,).

******Wh.nyouare ready lo lak. lM QuIZpl.as. click lhe Quiz euuenshownbelowonthe right.

Nil: Selecting an answer tn lhe QuIz will take you elralght to theno.t quest10n, so take care beforeyou cliCk onan answer.

.... 101••• p•••

223

To .111.

Appendix B3. A typical end page for Experiment2

Animer les graphiques dans les documents electroniques peutaccroitre la volonte de les etudier mais peut entraver une bonnecomprehension. La premiere experience montre que l'animation dediagrammes statiques accrott la motivation des lecteurs dans I'etude detout un eventail de types de graphiques (cartes, graphiques de temps,dessins d'objets non familiers). Le temps total de lecture augmenteaussi mais les differences d'acces des lecteurs aux graphiques statiqueset animes rendaient difficile l'interpretation des tests de retention. Unedeuxieme experience a montre que les scores aux questionsimmediatement apres la lecture etaient significativement plus elevesquand les graphiques etaient vus avant plutdt que durant la lecture,suggerant que les lecteurs trouvaient difficile d'integrer les graphiquesau traitement des discours. Les scores Ii un questionnaire immediat et Iiun questionnaire differe furent significativement plus eleves avec desgraphiques statiques qu 'avec des graphiques animes. Avec lesgraphiques animes, on a observe que les performances au questionnairecorrelent avec les scores des lecteurs Ii un test de memoire utilisant Iedessin, tandis qu 'avec les graphiques statiques on a observe uneinteraction significative avec les performances des lecteurs aune tachede memoire des chiffres. Les lecteurs avec des scores eleves enmemoire de chiffres ont tire benefice d 'un acces aux graphiques durantla lecture, mais les lecteurs avec des scores faibles ant ete genes par untel acces pendant la lecture. Tout ceci suggere que les competencescognitives necessaires pour integrer le texte avec des graphiquesanimes peuvent differer de celles necessaires avec des graphiquesstatiques.

Key words: Animation, Diagrams, Individual differences, Interactive displays, Text.

Received: November1998

224 P. WR1GHT, R. MILROY, & A. LICKORISH

Patricia Wright. School of Psychology, Cardiff University, PO Box 901, CardiffCFI 3YG, U.K.

Current theme ofresearch:

My research concerns the psychology of communication as it relates to task-embedded reading and information designas an assistive technology. A recent focus of this research has been the reading and writing ofmcdical messages.

Most relevant publications in the field ofPsychology ofEducation:

Wright, P. (1998). L'utilisation de documents dans la prise de decision. Based on chapter in English in Rouer, Levcnen& Biardeau (Eds.), 1997. In special, issue of Hypertextes et Hypermedias, 77-93.

Wright, P., Lickerish, A., & Umellen N. (1995). Graphics in written directions: appreciated by readers not by writers.Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9,41-59.

Wright, P., & Lickorish, A. (1994). Menus and memory load: Navigation strategies in interactive search tasks.International Journal ofHuman-Computer Studies. 40,965-1008.

Black, A., Wright, P.D., & Norman, K. (1992). Using dictionary information: Some factors influencing whether readerswill check the meanings of unknown in a text. Hypermedia, 4, 145-169.

AnnLlckerlsh. MRC, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 2EF, U.K.

Current theme ofresearch:

Data base construction.

Most relevant publications in the field ofPsychology ofEducation:

Wright, P., Lickerish, A., & Umellen N. (1995). Graphics in written directions: Appreciated by readers not by writers.Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9,41-59.

Wright, P., & Lickorish, A. (1994). Menus and memory load; Navigation strategies in interactive search tasks.International Journal ofHuman- Computer Studies, 40,965-1008.

static and animated graphics in learning from interactive texts

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