Effects of Emotional Valence and Arousal of Decorative Images on Comprehension and Assembly of Instructions

IRRAZABAL, N; BURIN, DI; SAUX, G.

Brighton

Encuentro; 28th Annual Meeting Society for Text and Discourse; 2018

Society Text & Discourse

This study addressed the effect of decorative images with affective properties (high/low in valence and arousal) in procedural multimedia comprehension. Dependent variables were mean study time, and accuracy during object assembly. High arousal images made participants study the instructions slower, and led to more errors in performance; in contrast, valence did not have an effect. In line with the seductive detail effect, we found evidence against including irrelevant, highly arousing, emotional information in instructional materials.