13:00h, online talk.

Language: English.

Promises and pitfalls of using neurophysiology to study the effects of pictorial seductive details during text reading

Dr. Christian Scharinger

Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien Tübingen, Germany

While eye-tracking is nowadays widely used in research on reading and multimedia processing, to date the electroencephalogram (EEG), despite its long research tradition in neuroscientific, basic research, has only rarely been used in research on multimedia (i.e., combinations of text and picture). Yet, the EEG frequency band power in the alpha (8 – 13 Hz) and theta (4 – 6 Hz) frequency band might be valid process measures of the mental processing demands during a task, and, especially when combined with eye-tracking, the EEG might be an interesting research methodology even for more complex, multimedia task materials. In the talk I will give a brief introduction in the methodology, present a research project aiming at using the EEG to study effects of decorative pictures as so-called seductive details on multimedia learning, and discuss potential promises but also challenges when using EEG in the context of more complex task materials.

Bio

Christian Scharinger received his PhD degree in cognitive science from the University of Tuebingen in 2015. Since then, he has been working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Multimodal Interaction Lab of the Knowledge Media Research Center / Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien in Tübingen, Germany. He has a profound expertise in (neuro-) physiological measures like eye-tracking and EEG. In his research he tries to combine basic and applied research areas. His research interests comprise basic cognitive concepts like working memory and executive functions and applied task settings like learning, hypertext reading, web searching, and multimedia, with a strong focus on physiological measures of mental processing demands therein.