0000000000448706

AUTHOR

Christiane Baadte

Visual attention while solving the test of understanding graphs in kinematics: an eye-tracking analysis

This study used eye-tracking to capture students' visual attention while taking a test of understanding graphs in kinematics (TUG-K). A total of N = 115 upper-secondary-level students from Germany and Switzerland took the 26-item multiple-choice instrument after learning about kinematics graphs in the regular classroom. Besides choosing the correct alternative among research-based distractors, the students were required to judge their response confidence for each question. The items were presented sequentially on a computer screen equipped with a remote eye tracker, resulting in a set of approx. 3000 paired responses (accuracy and confidence) and about 40 h of eye-movement data (approx. 500…

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The picture superiority effect in associative memory: A developmental study.

We tested whether semantic relatedness between to-be-remembered items and item presentation format (pictorial vs. verbal) affects associative recall. Fifty-nine children (11-13 years old) and forty young adults (age 18-30) completed a learning and recall task for semantically related (e.g., padlock-key) and unrelated (e.g., lemon-piano) picture-picture, word-picture, and word-word pairs. The data revealed memory advantage for semantically related item pairs, and for pictures compared to words. A picture superiority effect was found exclusively for pure picture pairs. Despite pronounced differences in memory accuracy, the effect of semantic relatedness and the picture superiority effect were…

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Attention Switching and Multimedia Learning: The Impact of Executive Resources on the Integrative Comprehension of Texts and Pictures

The ability to flexibly allocate attention to goal-relevant information is pivotal for the completion of high-level cognitive processes. For instance, in comprehending illustrated texts, the reader permanently has to switch the attentional focus between the text and the corresponding picture in order to extract relevant information from both sources. Thus, the hypothesis was tested that individuals with a lower switching capacity exhibit a decreased performance in tasks that require the flexible switch of attention between two external representations. Participants read an illustrated text and answered questions that either required the extraction of information from the text alone or from …

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