A review of research and a meta-analysis of the seductive detail effect

Seductive details constitute interesting but irrelevant information that are not necessary to achieve the instructional objective. The seductive detail effect occurs when people learn more deeply from instructional messages that exclude rather than include these details. This effect is mainly explained by assuming an overloading of the working memory, attention distraction, schema interference or coherence disruption. This review presents 39 experimental effects in the form of text passages, illustrations and other kinds of seductive details. This meta-analysis reveals a significant seductive detail effect with small to medium (retention performance) and medium (transfer performance) effects. Furthermore, empirical evidence for moderating effects and various explanations of the seductive detail effect are reviewed. Empirical data supports, but also calls into question, each of the four explanations. The review concludes by discussing the theoretical and practical implications, as well as the limitations and future directions of this research.