Seductive Images in Lecture: Does Extending the Time Between Testing and Learning Still Produce The Seductive Details Effect?
Social Sciences
Pysch 108: Educational Psychology
Using images or sentences that are not relevant to the pedagogical goal of a lesson, known as seductive details, have been shown to decrease academic performance, known as the seductive details effect (Harp & Maslich, 2005). However, all documented studies on this phenomenon have had the testing period immediately after the learning period of the material. Additionally, there also appears to be a relationship between seductive details and emotions that has not been explored in detail (Harp and Mayer, 1997). This study aims to fill these gaps in the literature. It was hypothesized that participants who listened to a lecture with relevant images would perform better on an assessment than those who viewed seductive images. It was also hypothesized that a positive relationship between participant’s image satisfaction, positive emotions, and test scores would be found. To accomplish this 41 participants listened to and were assessed on a lecture containing seductive images based on the ESTELL pedagogy. It was found that there was no statistically significant difference between the test scores of participants who viewed seductive images and those who viewed relevant images. Furthermore, image satisfaction scores did not correlate with participant test scores. Results are explained in terms of increased time to reflect on the material and potential issues with experiment implementation and construct validity.
