COMPUTATIONAL-EFFICIENCY THROUGH VISUAL ARGUMENT - DO GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS COMMUNICATE RELATIONS IN TEXT TOO EFFECTIVELY

Previous research on graphic organizers has found that they facilitate memory for corresponding text. This study investigated why one type o f graphic organizer (a matrix) may communicate interconcept relations more effectively than an outline or text. In three experiments, colleg e students judged the accuracy of interconcept relations after they re ad a text and studied a matrix, an outline, or the text again. We also measured students' performance when study time was reduced and testin g delayed. Results indicated that even when study time was reduced, vi ewing a matrix helped students make more accurate judgments of interco ncept relations. We conclude that a matrix is more computationally eff icient than an outline or text, enabling readers to compute interconce pt relations more quickly and easily (Larkin & Simon, 1987), due to a communicative process called visual argument (Waller, 1981). However, this advantage disappeared when testing was delayed, which, ironically , may have been due to computational efficiency. (C) 1994 Academic Pre ss, Inc.