Do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations? Changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learning

Perceptually rich visualizations can overburden learners with too many details. As some learning tasks depend on realism and details, techniques that facilitate the cognitive processing of such visualizations are sought after. Concreteness fading has been proposed as an instructional method in which...

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Main Author: Alexander Skulmowski
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2023-01-01
Series:Current Research in Behavioral Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666518223000177
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author Alexander Skulmowski
author_facet Alexander Skulmowski
author_sort Alexander Skulmowski
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description Perceptually rich visualizations can overburden learners with too many details. As some learning tasks depend on realism and details, techniques that facilitate the cognitive processing of such visualizations are sought after. Concreteness fading has been proposed as an instructional method in which learners are first presented with a detailed visualization that is later replaced with a schematic version. A second technique that is thought to help learners is guidance fading, in which tasks get successively more difficult. In the first experiment (n = 125), fading the concreteness of an anatomical visualization, however, had a negative effect on learning, while using guidance fading during testing (realized by increasing the difficulty of the tests over time) had no effect. The second experiment (n = 107) was conducted to assess whether guidance fading implemented by first showing a complex model with color cues and later removing these hints can foster learning. The study revealed that this form of guidance fading had no effect on learning. The results have implications for the design of instructional visualizations and animations as they outline how changing the style of a visualization can interfere with building mental models. Based on the findings, educators should carefully consider whether they need to show visualizations that differ in their visual style in quick succession during a lecture or in an animation.
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spelling doaj.art-5edf984b1ea14c8b8568eb55158a5b992023-06-24T05:19:14ZengElsevierCurrent Research in Behavioral Sciences2666-51822023-01-014100112Do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations? Changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learningAlexander Skulmowski0Digital Education, Institute for Informatics and Digital Education, Karlsruhe University of Education, GermanyPerceptually rich visualizations can overburden learners with too many details. As some learning tasks depend on realism and details, techniques that facilitate the cognitive processing of such visualizations are sought after. Concreteness fading has been proposed as an instructional method in which learners are first presented with a detailed visualization that is later replaced with a schematic version. A second technique that is thought to help learners is guidance fading, in which tasks get successively more difficult. In the first experiment (n = 125), fading the concreteness of an anatomical visualization, however, had a negative effect on learning, while using guidance fading during testing (realized by increasing the difficulty of the tests over time) had no effect. The second experiment (n = 107) was conducted to assess whether guidance fading implemented by first showing a complex model with color cues and later removing these hints can foster learning. The study revealed that this form of guidance fading had no effect on learning. The results have implications for the design of instructional visualizations and animations as they outline how changing the style of a visualization can interfere with building mental models. Based on the findings, educators should carefully consider whether they need to show visualizations that differ in their visual style in quick succession during a lecture or in an animation.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666518223000177LearningVisualization3DGuidance fadingConcreteness fadingRealism
spellingShingle Alexander Skulmowski
Do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations? Changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learning
Current Research in Behavioral Sciences
Learning
Visualization
3D
Guidance fading
Concreteness fading
Realism
title Do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations? Changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learning
title_full Do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations? Changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learning
title_fullStr Do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations? Changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learning
title_full_unstemmed Do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations? Changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learning
title_short Do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations? Changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learning
title_sort do concreteness fading and guidance fading aid learning from perceptually rich visualizations changes in style lead to more cognitive load and interfere with learning
topic Learning
Visualization
3D
Guidance fading
Concreteness fading
Realism
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666518223000177
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