Sources of information, from textbooks to multimedia encyclopedias combine text and graphics. This paper applies the construction-integration model of text comprehension to the processing of text and quantitative graphs. The model suggests that, when reading a graph that has information that is redundant with the text, a reader may directly connect the propositional information from the graph and the text due to overlap. When reading a graph that has information that elaborates on the text, a reader makes inferences to connect the propositional information from the graph and the text. Hypotheses from this model are that (1) use of an elaborative graph should produce better comprehension if the graph and text are concurrent, whereas (2) use of a redundant graph should produce better comprehension if the graph and text are separated. Three experiments tested these hypotheses by giving readers text with three types of graphs – text only, redundant graphs, and elaborative graphs — with the graphs either concurrent with (Experiment 1), before (Experiment 2A), or after (Experiment 2B) the text, then giving readers text-based or inference-based questions. In all three orders of the graph and text, performance on the inference-based questions was better in the elaborative graph condition than in the redundant graph condition. The discussion extends the application of the construction-integration model to reading text with graphs.
[1]
James I. Brown.
The Nelson-Denny Reading Test.
,
1960
.
[2]
R. Mayer,et al.
The instructive animation: helping students build connections between words and pictures in multimedia learning
,
1992
.
[3]
Steven Pinker,et al.
A theory of graph comprehension.
,
1990
.
[4]
Bill Winn,et al.
Charts, Graphs, and Diagrams in Educational Materials
,
1987
.
[5]
W. Kintsch.
The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: a construction-integration model.
,
1988,
Psychological review.
[6]
A. Paivio.
Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach
,
1986
.
[7]
W. Kintsch,et al.
Are Good Texts Always Better? Interactions of Text Coherence, Background Knowledge, and Levels of Understanding in Learning From Text
,
1996
.
[8]
John R. Kirby,et al.
COLLABORATIVE AND COMPETITIVE EFFECTS OF VERBAL AND SPATIAL PROCESSES
,
1993
.
[9]
Patricia Baggett,et al.
Memory for explicit and implicit information in picture stories
,
1975
.
[10]
M. Just,et al.
Constructing mental models of machines from text and diagrams.
,
1993
.