Using pop-up windows to improve multimedia learning S. Erhel & E. Jamet Laboratoire de Psychologie Expe ´ rimentale, CRPCC, Universite ´ Rennes 2 Haute Bretagne, Rennes Cedex, France Abstract The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effects on learning of the spatial integration of textual information incorporated into illustrations in the form of pop-up windows that are opened by the user. Three groups of students viewed illustrated texts depicting the func- tioning of the heart and the replication of the AIDS virus either with textual information presented below the picture, with textual information integrated within the picture, or with textual information integrated within the picture with pop-up windows. The results showed that the integrated formats were more effective than the separated format when we tested the retention of textual information, comprehension and the matching of textual elements to the appropriate illustrated elements. Furthermore, they indicated that the group working with pop-up windows performed better than the integrated groups on the retention test for illu- strated information as well as when asked to find correct solutions to problems in a com- prehension test. Consequently, these findings support the use of pop-up windows in learning with this kind of illustrated explanatory text. Keywords cognitive psychology, instruction, multimedia, post-graduate. Introduction Since the 1970s, many studies have focused on learning with illustrated documents. Globally, these studies have shown that the addition of an illustration to a text significantly improves memorization perfor- mance (Levie & Lentz 1982). More recently, studies of the effects of illustrations have tended to focus more on the understanding of educational and tech- nical documents. Taking models of text comprehen- sion (Johnson-Laird 1983; Kintsch 1998) as a starting point, a number of researchers have tried to evaluate the effects of the presence of illustrations on the ela- boration of mental representations in response to complex documents. According to Schnotz et al. (1999), the processing of an illustrated document follows two distinct paths: a descriptive path (or symbolic path) dedicated to the processing of the text; and a depictive path (or analogical path), which is involved in the processing of the illustration. In the descriptive path, the processing activities applied to the text are similar to those performed in models of text comprehension, i.e. a surface representation and a text base. Following new processing activities, the text base enables the construction of a mental model that is located in the depictive path. In the depictive path, the processing of the illustration results in a visual re- presentation followed by a mental model. The pro- cessing of the textual and illustrated elements within the descriptive and depictive paths, respectively, makes it possible to develop a single mental model. Many studies on illustrated documents have con- firmed the impact of illustrations during the con- struction of a mental model. In the first of these (Mayer 1989), students read a passage about vehicle Correspondence: Se ´ verine Erhel, Laboratoire de Psychologie Expe ´ rimentale, CRPCC, Universite ´ Rennes 2 Haute Bretagne, 1 place du recteur Henri Le Moal, 35043 Rennes Cedex, France. E-mail: severine.erhel@uhb.fr Accepted: 3 February 2006 & 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation & 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 22, pp137–147 137 Original article