Abstract: Cueing and prior knowledge affect learners’ bottom-up and top-down processing in multimedia learning respectively. Researchers of previous studies paid much more attention to some questions, namely “whether”, “what kind of” or “where” cues should be presented, and a strong cueing effect was confirmed as expected (for a review, see De Koning, Tabbers, Rikers, & Paas, 2009). However, when to present cues, that is, the temporal synchronization between the presentation of cues and words, which might significantly affect the integration of texts and diagrams (Scheiter & Eitel, 2015; Twyford & Craig, 2013), was neglected by previous researchers. In this study, an animation related to the process of chemical synaptic transmission (Ozcelik, Karakus, Kursun, & Cagiltay, 2009) were used as multimedia learning materials in which the words were presented in an audio format, rather than a visual format, to adhere to the modality principle (see Mayer, 2009). One hundred and twenty-five high (HPK) or low prior knowledge (LPK) college students (96 women) aged between 17 and 27 were recruited as participants and randomly assigned to three cueing conditions, namely advanced cues, synchronized cues, and delayed cues. A total of 13 keywords of commentaries (e.g. action potential) and corresponding cues in the picture were reasonably selected in each condition. Cues were respectively presented 2.6s before or after the corresponding commentaries in the condition of advanced or delayed cues, and each cue lasted for 1.4s. SMI RED 250 Eye tracker was used to record eye movement data. The aim of present study was to explore the effects of synchronized or unsynchronized cues as well as learners’ prior knowledge on the efficiency of multimedia learning and their online distribution of attention. The results showed that learners in the condition of synchronized cues got higher scores and lower perceived difficulty of the material in all of the three tests (retention, transfer, and matching tests) than that of unsynchronized ones (advanced and delayed cues). During 3 seconds after the keywords of commentaries were presented, especially compared with delayed cues, both of the fixation time and first fixation duration of AOIs (areas of interest) in the condition of synchronized cues were longer. Besides, more glance count and fixation count of them were found when cues and words were synchronized. In comparison to LPK learners, HPK learners performed better and perceived lower difficulty in all of the tests, thus showing a great superiority. However, there was almost no significant difference between them on fixation processing. Furthermore, the cueing by prior knowledge interaction effect was not significant either on learning outcomes or on eye movement indicators. In conclusion, the synchronization of cueing and audio commentary affects participants’ learning outcomes and fixation processing as expected. Synchronized cues contribute to text-diagram integration and help building connections between word-based and image-based representations, then reduce the perceived subjective difficulty, promote fixation processing and thus enhance learners’ performance. Besides, learners’ prior knowledge influences the effectiveness of multimedia learning. HPK learners show a significant superiority effect. However, learners’ prior knowledge is not served as a moderator between cues and performance in this study.

Key words: synchronization, cueing, prior knowledge, multimedia learning, text-diagram integration, eye movements

摘要： 多媒体学习中，线索和经验可能在学习过程和学习效果上具有重要作用。研究控制了线索与解说呈现的时间同步性，选取高、低经验大学生被试，采用SMI RED 250记录眼动数据，探讨同步化线索和经验对多媒体学习注视加工过程和效果的影响。结果发现：同步线索条件下的测验成绩比非同步线索更高，感知难度更低，被试对线索区的总注视时间、首次注视时间更长，进入线索区次数和线索区注视点个数更多；高经验者的测验成绩比低经验者更好，感知难度也更低，但在注视加工上二者没有差异；线索和经验交互作用不显著。结论认为：同步线索更有利于图文整合，降低感知难度，促进注视加工，提高学习成绩；高经验者的经验优势表现在学习效果和主观难度感知上，而非注视加工；同步线索没有弥补低经验者的劣势。

关键词: 同步化, 线索, 经验, 多媒体学习, 图文整合, 眼动