Uso estratégico de representaciones pictóricas en un texto de ciencias con un detalle seductor en lectores con bajo conocimiento previo

SAUX, G.; IRRAZABAL, N.; BURIN, D. I

SIGNOS

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso

Lugar: Valparaíso; Año: 2015 vol. 48 p. 400 - 424

1413-0416

The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2001, 2005) argues that processing joint linguistic and pictorial information results in an integrated mental representation of the message, and that this can both benefit and lessen reading performance, depending on the function of such additions. This study examined the effect of including pictorial representations in an expository text in Spanish that included a tangential but interesting biographical fact (seductive detail). One hundred and forty seven low prior-knowledge participants read the text with the seductive verbal detail in one of three versions: non-illustrated (Verbal Detail Only condition), with an image linked to the verbal seductive detail (Seductive Multimedia condition), or with a diagram linked to the main topic of the text (Effective Multimedia condition). Participants? answers to a title selection task, a free recall task, and a sentence verification task (literal and inferential sentences) were collected. Results showed that the multimedia conditions differed in opposite directions with respect to the Verbal Detail Only condition. Whereas the Seductive Multimedia condition showed the poorest performance, the Effective Multimedia condition showed the best performance in free recall, but did not differ from the Verbal Detail Only condition in the inferential verification task. These results are interpreted in accordance with the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning.