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ItemSocial responses to virtual humans: the effect of human-like characteristics(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-07-07) Park, Sung JunA framework for understanding the social responses to virtual humans suggests that human-like characteristics (e.g., facial expressions, voice, expression of emotion) act as cues that lead a person to place the agent into the category "human" and thus, elicit social responses. Given this framework, this research was designed to answer two outstanding questions that had been raised in the research community (Moon&Nass, 2000): 1) If a virtual human has more human-like characteristics, will it elicit stronger social responses from people? 2) How do the human-like characteristics interact in terms of the strength of social responses? Two social psychological (social facilitation and politeness norm) experiments were conducted to answer these questions. The first experiment investigated whether virtual humans can evoke a social facilitation response and how strong that response is when participants are given different cognitive tasks (e.g., anagrams, mazes, modular arithmetic) that vary in difficulty. They did the tasks alone, in the company of another person, or in the company of a virtual human that varied in terms of features. The second experiment investigated whether people apply politeness norms to virtual humans. Participants were tutored and quizzed either by a virtual human tutor that varied in terms of features or a human tutor. Participants then evaluated the tutor's performance either directly by the tutor or indirectly via a paper and pencil questionnaire. Results indicate that virtual humans can produce social facilitation not only with facial appearance but also with voice recordings. In addition, performance in the presence of voice synced facial appearance seems to elicit stronger social facilitation (i.e., no statistical difference compared to performance in the human presence condition) than in the presence of voice only or face only. Similar findings were observed with the politeness norm experiment. Participants who evaluated their tutor directly reported the tutor's performance more favorably than participants who evaluated their tutor indirectly. In addition, this valence toward the voice synced facial appearance had no statistical difference compared to the valence toward the human tutor condition. The results suggest that designers of virtual humans should be mindful about the social nature of virtual humans.
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ItemTwo stage process model of learning from multimedia: guidelines for design(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-03-31) Zolna, Jesse S.Theories of learning from multimedia suggest that when media include two modal forms (e.g., visual and auditory), learning is improved by activating modally segregated working memory subsystems, thereby expanding the total cognitive resource available for learning (Mayer, 2001; Sweller, 1999). However, a recent meta-analysis suggests that the typical modality effect (use of narrations and diagrams [i.e., multimodal] leads to better learning than use of text and diagrams [i.e., unimodal]) might be limited to situations in which presentations are matched to the time it takes for the narration to play (Ginns, 2005). This caveat can be accounted for by the differences in ways that people process unimodal and multimodal information, but not by the expansion of working memory explanation for modality effects (Tabbers, 2002). In this paper, I propose a framework for conceptualizing how people interact with multimedia instructional materials. According to this approach, learning from multimedia requires (1) creating mental codes to represent to-be-learned information and (2) forming a network of associations among these mental codes to characterize how this information is related. The present research confirms, in two between-subjects experiments, predictions from this model when presentation pace and verbal presentation modality are manipulated to accompany static (Experiment 1) and animated (Experiment 2) diagrams. That is, the data suggest that learning from unimodal presentations improved as presentation pace was slowed, whereas learning from multimodal presentations did not change as presentation pace was slowed. A third experiment also confirmed predicted patterns of eye movement behavior, demonstrating patterns of increasing dwell time on pictures and switches between media as pace was slowed for unimodal presentations but not multimodal presentations. It is concluded that the parallel patterns of learning outcomes and eye-movement behavior support the proposed model and are not predicted by other models of learning from multimedia instructions. This improvement in predictions of the effects of manipulating design elements (e.g., presentation pace and verbal presentation modality) on learning can help designers as they consider what combination of resources (e.g., classroom time or equipment for multimodal presentation) to devote to instructional design.
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ItemStrategies for Using Instructions in Procedural Tasks(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-04-05) Eiríksdóttir, ElsaThe study examined whether an instruction-based strategy (studying the instructions before attempting the task) or a task-based strategy (attempting the task and referencing instructions) was more effective for procedural performance and learning. Four groups of participants learned to perform macram tasks and assembly tasks, and received detailed instructions at different times in the process of attempting the tasks. Performance was assessed at training and a week later by recording task completion time, correctness, and subjective cognitive load. The strategy for using instructions affected initial performance on the macram tasks, where instruction-based strategy was superior, but not later retention or transfer. This pattern of results was not found for the assembly tasks indicating that characteristics of the tasks influenced the effectiveness of the strategy for using instructions.
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ItemSocial facilitation effects of virtual humans(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006-07-11) Park, Sung JunWhen people do an easy task, and another person is nearby, they tend to do that task better than when they are alone. Conversely, when people do a hard task, and another person is nearby, they tend to do that task less well than when they are alone. This phenomenon is referred to in the social psychology literature as "social facilitation" (the name derives from the "good" side of the effect). Different theories have been proposed to explain this effect. The present study investigated whether people respond to a virtual human the same way they do to a real human. Participants were given different tasks to do that varied in difficulty. The tasks involved anagrams, mazes, modular arithmetic, and the Tower of Hanoi. They did the tasks either alone, in the company of another person, or in the company of a virtual human on a computer screen. As with a human, virtual humans produced the social facilitation effect: for easy tasks, performance in the virtual human condition was better than in the alone condition, and for difficult tasks, performance in the virtual human condition was worse than in the alone condition. Implications for the design of instructional systems as well as other systems involving human-computer interactions are discussed.
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ItemCan modular examples and contextual interference improve transfer?(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006-05-26) Gane, Brian D.Two instructional design features hypothesized to affect problem solving performance, problem format and contextual interference, were investigated. Problem format was manipulated by altering the format of worked examples to demonstrate a molar or modular solution. Contextual interference was manipulated by randomizing the order in which problem categories were studied. Participants studied worked examples from 5 complex probability categories and solved 11 novel problems. The modular problem format reduced study time and the workload during study and increased performance on the subsequent test. Greater contextual interference increased study time but had no effect on workload or test performance. Additionally, a regression analysis demonstrated that mental workload partially mediated the effect of problem format on test performance. A separate regression analysis did not demonstrate that working memory capacity moderated the effect of problem format on mental workload.
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ItemLearning from multimedia: the locus of modality effects(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005-09-19) Zolna, Jesse S.Research in educational psychology has focused on facilitating learning by using two presentation modalities (auditory and visual) to convey information. Learning is theorized to improve through an increase in perceptual information flow. I hypothesized that presenting information in two modalities might also provide additional benefits that occur after information is perceived, and while it is being processed for learning. The present study explored whether perceptual effects and cognitive effects of multimedia presentation can be separated by presenting auditory and visual information sequentially or simultaneously. During simultaneous presentation, the typical multimedia effect (that is, facilitating learning by presenting information in two modalities) did not occur, suggesting that the multimedia effect might depend upon more than perceptual effects. Moreover, the manipulation showed significant effects of presentation type during sequential presentation, suggesting that effects previously thought to be a result of reducing perceptual overlap might actually occur after perception. Based on the results of this study, I recommend that information designers reconsider the sources assumed to influence the multimedia learning effect. This would have implications for determining the optimal presentation of information.