Effects of task experience and layout on learning from text and pictures with or without unnecessary picture descriptions

The presentation of extraneous (i.e., irrelevant or unnecessary) information may hamper learning with multimedia. The present study examined whether people can learn to ignore unnecessary information with increasing experience with the task and whether this depends on the layout of that information. In two experiments, participants learned about the process of mitosis from a multimedia slideshow, with each slide presenting a combination of expository text and a picture on one of the stages in the process. Slides either contained no unnecessary text (control condition) or unnecessary text (i.e., merely describing the picture) either integrated in the picture (integrated condition) or presented underneath the picture (separated condition). Knowledge about the studied mitosis phase was tested immediately after each slide using a cloze test. Across Experiments 1 and 2, we did not find a reliable negative effect of the unnecessary text on cloze test performance. As a result, the question of whether task experience would reduce or eliminate that negative effect could not be answered. The eye movement data did confirm, however, that participants attended less to the unnecessary information with increasing task experience, suggesting that students can adapt their study strategy and learn to ignore unnecessary information. Lay Description What is already known about this topic: When learning with multimedia, presenting extraneous information should be avoided because it hinders learning. Extraneous information can either be irrelevant (not related to the topic) or unnecessary (related to the topic). Students seem able to ignore irrelevant information with increasing task experience. When they ignore irrelevant information, it no longer negatively affects their learning. What this paper adds: We examined whether students would also be able to ignore unnecessary information with increasing task experience. The collected eye movement data indicated that students indeed started to ignore the unnecessary information. However, this change in study strategy did not lead to improvements in test performance. Presumably, the presentation of unnecessary information did not initially hamper learning (in contrast to prior research). Implications for practice and/or policy: Learners are able to adapt their study strategy and start to ignore unnecessary information with increasing task experience. Irrelevant and unnecessary information might affect learning differently. For instr