The cognitive functions of underlining as a study technique

Peterson, Sarah E.

doi:10.1080/19388079209558078

Cited by 56 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The von Restorff effect says that an item isolated against a homogenous background will be more likely to be attended to. This puts to rest some past confusion in the literature regarding various potential explanations for the effectiveness of underlining [12,15]. Users' eyes were drawn to ScentHighlighted regions initially, and over half of the fixations were in ScentHighlighted regions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, while there are contradictory evidences regarding the effectiveness of performing underlining and highlighting during study, research by Nist and Hogrebe in 1987 and Peterson in 1992 seems to agree that the von Restorff effect could be used to explain students' performance [12,15]. Students appear to focus on and learn what is marked, whether the information is important or not.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent eye-tracking results in visual foraging in information visualizations of hierarchical data show that strong information scent appears to improve visual search, but a high density of targets degrades visual search when there is weak information scent [16]. In the field of educational psychology and instruction, there has been some interesting research in understanding the role of underlining and highlighting [12,15,20]. These studies try to understand the role of underlining or highlighting as an effective encoding and reviewing process during learning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visual Foraging of Highlighted Text: An Eye-Tracking Study

Gumbrecht

Hong

2007

Human-Computer Interaction. HCI Intelligent Multimodal Interaction Environments

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The wide availability of digital reading material online is causing a major shift in everyday reading activities. Readers are increasingly skimming instead of reading in depth. Highlights are increasingly used in digital interfaces to direct attention toward relevant passages within texts. In this paper, we study the eye-tracking behavior of subjects using both keyword highlighting and a new highlighting technique called ScentHighlights, introduced recently [7]. In this first eye-tracking study of highlighting interfaces, we show that there is direct evidence of the von Restorff isolation effect [21] in the eye-tracking data, in that subjects performed better when a fact is isolated (highlighted) against a homogeneous background. Users with the ScentHighlights condition paid more attention to highlighted areas and are more accurate than with other interfaces. In addition to confirming the von Restorff effect, we found that there is great variation in subject differences in reading strategies among subjects, even in the presence of strong cues such as highlights. Some readers scan for highly profitable regions first, while others read sequentially despite the presence of strong highlight cues. The results point to future design possibilities in highlighting interfaces.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visual Foraging of Highlighted Text: An Eye-Tracking Study

Gumbrecht

Hong

2007

Human-Computer Interaction. HCI Intelligent Multimodal Interaction Environments

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“…Other studies have demonstrated that reader-generated text marking has no significant impact on comprehension (Fowler & Barker, 1974;Hoon, 1974;Idstein & Jenkins, 1972). In fact, some researchers have provided evidence that the employment of text marking during study can actually lead to decreased comprehension (e.g., Peterson, 1992).…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

Reading Skill, Textbook Marking, and Course Performance

Bell

Limber

2009

Literacy Research and Instruction

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“…Other college students write in the margins of the textbook or make flash cards in order to retain information for upcoming tests (Winograd, 1984). Peterson (1992) found that when students highlight relevant parts of passages, reading comprehension improves. Unfortunately, when students do not actively think about what they are reading and they highlight material that is unimportant, little comprehension of the material occurs (Gourney, 1999;Long & Long, 1987).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%