Impact of Presentation Mode on Recall of Written Text and Numerical Information: Hard Copy versus Electronic

The current research investigated the influence of mode of visual presentation (hard copy, electronic) on memory for both written text and numerical information. Additionally, with respect to numerical information, the investigation addressed the potential differential impact of mode of visual presentation across three different forms of numerical presentation (graph, table, paragraph). Research Involving Written Text Previous research has investigated the basic comparison between traditional hard copy visual presentation and electronic visual presentation in terms of understanding and memory of written information. Some research has shown electronic visual presentation to be superior in terms of comprehension and recall of printed text (Moore & Zabrucky, 1995). However, many other studies have found no difference between presentation modes. For example, research has shown no difference in recall when using small fonts (Motoki, 2006), no difference in knowledge gain of information aimed at persuasion (Murphy, Long, Holleran, & Esterly, 2003), no difference in recall for historical information (White & Kuhn, 1997), as well as no difference in recall for biological information (Rehbein, Hinostroza, Ripoll, & Alister, 2002) . In considering the mixed findings of these studies, it is important to note methodological differences among studies. For studies (e.g., Motoki, 2006; Murphy et al., 2003) cited above reporting no difference between electronic and hard copy modes, full text passages were presented equally in both electronic and hard copy conditions. However, for the study (Moore & Zabrucky, 1995) finding superiority for electronic presentation, the electronic presentation of material was made one sentence at a time, while hard copy presentation involved multiple sentences of text presented in booklet form. These methodological differences taken in the context of information processing theory and associated principles of memory augmentation may well provide a potential explanation for the mixed pattern of findings. That is, Atkinson and Shiffrin's (1968) information processing model would, under carefully controlled experimental conditions, predict no difference between hard and electronic copy conditions unless something were to give rise to differential selective attention to stimuli or differential encoding of information from limited capacity working memory into long term memory storage. Similarly, Craik and Lockhart's (1972) levels-of-processing model would also predict no difference between presentation modes unless something (greater elaboration, more personal reference, an mnemonic technique) led to greater depth of processing for one of the modes. Therefore, it may not be surprising that the majority of memory research (e.g., Motoki, 2006; Murphy et al., 2003) cited above reported no difference between electronic and hard copy presentation modes since the text passages for these studies were the same for both electronic and hard copy conditions. Further, for the study (Moore & Zabrucky, 1995) where a difference was reported, differences in attentional focus and depth of processing associated with the presentation methodology associated with each mode of presentation may well have been responsible for the difference in memory performance. Research Involving Numerical Information Although previous research has addressed the impact of presentation mode across multiple types of non-numerical stimulus material, no studies to our knowledge have addressed the impact of presentation mode (electronic, hard copy) on memory for numerical data. However, several studies have addressed the influence of presentation form (graph, table, paragraph) on memory through either hard copy or electronic modes. For studies utilizing a hard copy presentation mode, some have found presenting information in tables and graphs to lead to superior recall in comparison to presenting information in paragraph form (Washburne, 1927). …