How Seductive Detail And Cognitive Load Effect Multimedia Learning:Evidence From Eye-Tracking

Seductive detail were widely applied in various areas because it was generally believed that learner will be more interested in what they are learning and improve the performance when something funny but irrelevant content was added along with the boring knowledge. However, the current research showed opposite result that adding something funny but irrelevant content not only could not reach prospective positive effect but also even could damage the learning performance. This research intended to discuss and analyze what the effect the seductive detail for learning performance in multimedia, positive or negative, in the view of cognitive load.This research was to discuss and analyze what impact the cognitive load and seductive detail had on learning effect by using eye-tracking technology in the multimedia environment, including the impact on learning effect and impact on the learning process. This study consisted of three experiments. Experiment 1:Discussed and analyzed the impact of extraneous cognitive load and seductive detail on multimedia learning effect.2 (seductive detail:seductive detail; no seductive detail)×2 (different levels of extraneous cognitive load:redundancy; no redundancy) two entirely random experiment was designed for two factors.Experiment 2:Discussed and analyzed the impact of the intrinsic cognitive load and seductive detail on multimedia learning effect.2 (seductive detail; no seductive detail)×2 (high or low intrinsic cognitive load:high background or low background) two entirely random experiment was designed for two factors.Experiment 3:Discussed and analyzed the impact of germane cognitive load and seductive detail on multimedia learning effect.2 (seductive detail:seductive detail; no seductive detail)×2 (different level of germane cognitive load:notes or no notes) two entirely random experiment was designed for two factors. The dependent variables in the study were grade of recall, recognition and problem solving, and fixation duration, saccade frequency, fixation count and so on. Learning contents included text and the pictures. Besides, seductive detail appeared on every page, including the pictures and text.Through this research, the author drew the conclusions as follow:(1) Seductive detail would do harm to the multimedia learning especially to the learning content which need mind memorizing.(2) The negative impact of seduction detail on multimedia learning is mainly caused by attention distraction and learning arising from the inappropriate schema.(3) Under low cognitive load, seductive detail has a negative impact on the learning process. Learners can effectively avoid the attention distraction from seductive detail in learning process under high cognitive load.