The Effect of Related and Unrelated Details on the Recall of Major Ideas in Prose

Abstract

A series of three experiments was conducted to examine the effect of related and unrelated details on the recall of major ideas in text. Experiment 1 varied the number of related and unrelated details supporting major ideas within paragraphs and found recall determined by the number of related and unrelated details. Experiment 2 was designed to determine if directions given readers that required them to process unrelated details would influence recall. The results suggested that the number of related and unrelated details had an effect on the recall of major ideas similar to that seen in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 was constructed such that readers were required to carefully process unrelated details in a categorizing task. The results supported those of Experiments 1 and 2.

Cognitive constraints on multimedia learning: When presenting more material results in less understanding.

“…Thus, the video clips are analogous to seductive details in text passages, which can be defined as interesting but conceptually irrelevant material that is added to a passage to arouse the learner's interest (Garner, Brown, Sanders, & Menke, 1992;Garner, Gillingham, & White, 1989). Research on seductive details in a book-based environment has shown that adding interesting but conceptually irrelevant text to a text passage can reduce the amount of relevant material that the learner remembers (Garner et al, 1992(Garner et al, , 1989Hidi & Baird, 1988;Mohr, Glover, & Ronning, 1984;Shirey & Reynolds, 1988;Wade & Adams, 1990). Similarly, Harp & Mayer (1997 reported that adding interesting but conceptually irrelevant illustrations to a text-andillustrations explanation results in poorer performance on tests of retention and transfer.…”

How Interest Affects Learning from Text

“…However, this is not a viable strategy for creating interest for several reasons. First, the research has consistently found that adding seductive details, or any kind of detail unrelated to the main ideas, does not facilitate and often has a detrimental effect on the learning of important information (Bradshaw & Anderson, 1982;Garner et al, 1989;Hidi & Baird, 1988;Mohr, Glover, & Ronning, 1984;Wade & Adams, in press). Second, seductive details attract a good deal of the reader's attention, which could otherwise be devoted to essential information.…”

“…Armbruster (1984) has described four characteristics of texts that make them more considerate to the reader: (a) using the most appropriate structure for presenting the text's content (e.g., comparison/contrast, temporal sequence, cause-and-effect); (b) giving the reader information about text structure by means of signals (e.g., introductions, headings, and typographic cues), which also indicate which ideas are important (Meyer, 1979); (c) making clear how words, clauses, sentences, and ideas are related to one another by means of causal connectives such as in contrast and other types of cohesive ties; and (d) providing enough examples, details, analogies, and other kinds of elaborations to make the content meaningful to the reader. However, elaborations must be used discriminately because excessive use of details, especially when they are unrelated to the main ideas, has been found to interfere with the learning of important information (Bradshaw & Anderson, 1982;Mohr, Glover, & Ronning, 1984;Reder & Anderson, 1980).…”

“…Findings are also consistent with research investigating the effect of related and unrelated details on recall. Mohr, Glover, and Ronning (1984) found that the number of unrelated details in a passage was negatively correlated with the recall of major ideas, and Bradshaw and Anderson (1982) found that major ideas are recalled better when they are presented alone than when they are studied along with unrelated facts. In both studies, major ideas were recalled best when they were embellished with supporting details, added only to elaborate the main idea.…”

Processes in Reading Comprehension and the Teaching of Comprehension

“…For example, easier vocabulary and reading levels facilitate identification (Barrett & Otto, 1969), as does the number of supporting details provided (Mohr, Glover, & Ronning, 1984). The presence of an explicit topic sentence also helps main idea identification (Bridge, Belmore, Moskow, Cohen, & Matthews, 1984); but instructional texts often do not contain explicit statements of main ideas (Braddock, 1974;Baumann & Serra, 1984).…”