Extracting information from an animation during complex visual learning

The construction of a high quality mental model from a complex visual display relies the capacity of learners to extract appropriate information from that display. Beginning students of meteorology complied written records of generalisations extracted from animated weather map sequences in order to prepare themselves for a subsequent prediction task. Analysis of these records revealed that much of the information extracted was perceptually salient rather than thematically relevant. This perceptual dominance effect was found for both visuospatial and temporal aspects of the display. The statements produced were deficient with regard to the causal explanations that would be necessary to build a satisfactory mental model of the depicted situation. These deficiencies involved both the proportion of causal material recorded and the attribution of causality on an everyday rather than a domain-appropriate basis. The limitations of the information extracted were interpreted as evidence of subjects’ use of selective attention to control cognitive load in a complex, demanding processing situation and the effects of their lack of domain-specific background knowledge. Contrary to prevailing orthodoxies, the results raise the possibility that in some circumstances, animations may not be instructionally superior to static depictions because the processing demands involved can have negative effects on learning.