Learning manipulative and non-manipulative tasks through animations

Research into cognitive load theory, particularly the transitory information effect, has found that animations (i.e., video, film, animation, etc.) are problematical learning formats. Due to highly transitory information that many dynamic visualisations convey, animations impose a higher cognitive load on learners than more permanent forms, such as static pictures. Consequently, for many domains animations appear to be less effective learning environments than static visualisations. Nevertheless, in the special case when the instructional task involves human manipulations, the transitory information effect of animations seems to dissipate or reduce; a phenomenon known as the human movement effect. This effect occurs because humans have evolved to observe and imitate dynamic manipulations and other tasks that involve motor skills. Consistent with this argument, because manipulations involve hands, hand depictions may be efficient assets to learn from dynamic visualisations, even for non-manipulative tasks. Hence, this study investigated different approaches (animation vs. statics presentations) to improve the instructional effectiveness of animations, for both manipulative and non-manipulative tasks, including the impact of showing or not showing the hands when observing the tasks.The five experiments reported here consisted of individual sessions where undergraduate students observed the presentation of a task on the computer screen, and then attempted to imitate it. Experiments 1, 2 and 4 showed an instructional advantage of animation over static pictures when constructing a manipulative Lego task. Experiments 3 and 5 showed that, for non-manipulative tasks with abstract symbols, observing the hands that solved the tasks was productive for learning with static pictures but unproductive for learning with animations. Experiment 5, which featured a more difficult non-manipulative task than Experiment 3, showed an advantage of static pictures over animations.In conclusion, this study provided evidence in support of the transitory and human movement effects.Specifically it found that, under the given conditions, when studying manipulative tasks, animations were better instructional resources than static pictures. In addition, when studying non-manipulative tasks (a) static pictures were better instructional resources than animations, (b) static pictures were enhanced with the added depiction of hands, and (c) animations were less effective with the added depiction of hands