The seductive detail effect arises when people learn more deeply from a multimedia presentation when interesting but irrelevant adjuncts are excluded. However, previous studies about this effect are rather inconclusive and contained various methodical problems. The recent experiment attempted to overcome these methodical problems. Undergraduate…

The seductive detail principle asserts that people learn more deeply from a multimedia presentation when interesting but irrelevant adjuncts are excluded rather than included. However, critics could argue that studies about this principle contain methodological problems. The recent experiment attempts to overcome these problems. Students (N = 108)…

The expertise reversal effect occurs when a learner's expertise moderates design principles such as the redundancy principle (i.e., redundant information should be excluded rather than included) derived from the cognitive load theory. Although this effect is supported by numerous experiments, indicating an overall large effect size, a variety of…

The article discusses problems that arise from comparing different kinds of presentation modes such as texts, pictures or animations with regard to learning outcome. These comparisons are confounded with or depend on other variables like quality of the instructional design, learning content, familiarity with the presentation mode as well as…