Reducing the transience effect of animations does not (always) lead to better performance in children learning a complex hand procedure

When large amounts of information are presented in long-section animations, or videos, depicting hand procedures, a transient information effect has often been shown to potentially weaken the superiority of dynamic visualizations over static graphics and to increase cognitive load. In the present paper, 103 ten-year-old children learnt to tie complex nautical knots from either a video of hand movements or from a static graphics presentation. Experiment 1 extended previous studies in the field using a conventional sequential presentation of the knots, under four conditions (long-section animation, short-section animation, long-section static graphics and short-section static graphics), but in a more “ecological” learning task than the majority of previous studies, involving a combination of observation and practice. In Experiment 2, with the same task and the same conditions, transience was reduced using animated simultaneous presentations. Results showed that long-section animation did not always lose its superiority over static graphics in this type of learning task. In addition to the transient information effect of the cognitive load theory, complementary explanations in terms of inhibition processes, attentional continuity and task affordance are suggested.