Have you heard about “Seductive Details”? Despite them having a very powerful effect on learning, they are one of the least spoken-about areas of cognitive science. But once you know about them, you see them everywhere – and that can transform your teaching.
So let’s explore what Seductive Details are, some examples of them and what you can do to mitigate their impact on your students’ learning.
What are Seductive Details?
Seductive Details are interesting pieces of information that are irrelevant to students’ learning. And just like the name suggests, these features may entice your students but ultimately distract them from what they need to know.
When your students are presented with unnecessary details, they can also experience cognitive overload. This is because they can only hold a limited amount of information in their working memory – so when redundant information seeps in, what they actually need to remember can struggle or fail to move into their long-term memory store.
What counts as a Seductive Detail?
Some examples of Seductive Details include adding sounds to PowerPoint presentations or using unnecessary fun facts or irrelevant information in your lessons.
Does this mean you can’t add extra features to your teaching resources to engage your class? Making the learning process interesting supports class engagement, which can play an essential role in the learning process. But how much additional information is too much?
To get some clarity on this, we’ve had a look at some research to find out how different types of Seductive Details affect learning. Let’s take a closer look…
What does the research say about Seductive Details?
A meta-analysis that looked at over 7,500 learners concluded that, overall, students who learned with Seductive Details performed worse on tests compared to students who learned without them.
However, the researchers also considered the impact of different types on test performance. Here are the main results and how you can manage the use of Seductive Details in your teaching…
Result #1: Images inhibit learning much more than dynamic graphics
The Seductive Details Effect seems to be more apparent for images than dynamic graphics in presentations. The researchers suggest that students pay more attention to a standalone image as they see it as more important to their learning than a funky GIF that only lasts a few seconds.
So, even though it sounds counterintuitive, substituting images in presentations with GIFs or short animations may limit the negative impact of the Seductive Details effect and help your students remember more of what’s important (though, if in doubt, it’s probably best not to use GIFs anyway and just stick to relevant images).
Result #2: Pairing audio and visual resources can lessen the Seductive Details Effect
Students have two processing channels: auditory and visual. Each of these channels has a limited capacity when used on its own, but when they can use both channels at the same time, this frees up space in their working memories for them to remember more.
Using both visual and audio content is known as Dual Coding – read more on this here. They key is to be selective with what you choose and make the different formats complement each other. For example, if one image is all you need on a page for students to understand something, there is no need to add lots of similar images to drive the point across. All this does it burden students’ working memory, which can lead to cognitive overload and hinder learning.
Result #3: The Seductive Details Effect is larger for paper-based resources compared to digital presentations
In presentations, information can easily be presented in small steps by spreading it across different slides, which reduces cognitive load and makes it easier for students to make logical links between content – an approach called “segmenting”.
However, a handout typically contains both relevant and irrelevant information presented in large chunks, which makes students more likely to experience the Seductive Details Effect.
Overall, using presentations to introduce information to students can help them make more sense of it as long as there isn’t too much information on each slide.
Result #4: The presence of learning objectives did not increase the Seductive Details Effect
Incorporating learning objectives into your lesson does not act as a distraction for students. Instead, it helps students pay attention to the things in the lesson that they need to look out for and focus on, which keeps them engaged. These are most effective in the form of pre-questions, which were associated with improved recall later in the lesson. So, don’t hesitate to use them!
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, Seductive Details harm learning. Thankfully, this research gives more insight into where you might find these details within your learning resources and how to reduce their detrimental impact.
The main ways to avoid the Seductive Details Effect in your teaching material include using images that will help secure what students need to know and pairing these with verbal explanations, pacing your lesson by breaking up content into small steps to keep your students focused on what actually matters, and spending time engaging your students in learning objectives.
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