The Relative Involvement of Visual and Auditory Working Memory When Studying Adjunct Displays

In two experiments, students read a chapter-length text accompanied by seven outlines or graphic organizers. Students then performed 10 trials where they either viewed an image or listened to a sound, were tested on comprehension of the text, and then were tested on recognition of the image or sound. In both experiments, students who studied graphic organizers performed worse on the visual task, and in the second experiment, students who studied outlines performed worse on the auditory task. These results provide evidence that graphic organizers are encoded in a more visual format than outlines, whereas outlines are encoded in a more auditory format than graphic organizers. Results are also supportive of both conjoint retention (Kulhavy, Lee, & Caterino, 1985) and dual coding (Paivio, 1986) models of text learning and help to explain why graphic organizers are more effective than outlines in helping students learn concept relations in text.