Doug Vogel’s 1986 study demonstrated a clear and significant effect on persuasion when a presentation is delivered along with supporting visuals. What is not clear from Vogel’s work is exactly how the improvement in persuasion happens. Persuasion is a complicated process involving attention… comprehension… yielding/agreement… and retention …. culminating in action. Vogel studied 17 modifiers of these components of persuasion trying to understand what was going on, but in the end his results were inconclusive and even contradictory.

Professor Richard Mayer has approached the challenge of understanding the use of visuals from a different perspective. Mayer has focused on the effect of visuals on learning. Just as Vogel developed a well researched theory of persuasion, Mayer has done extensive research on learning and developed a cognitive theory of multimedia learning. All of the research he presents in his excellent book “Multimedia Learning” is designed to test the assumptions of this theory. Read the rest of this entry »