Effects of visual‐verbal redundancy and recaps on television news learning

The study investigated the effect of two techniques for reinforcing the message in television news stories: visual‐verbal redundancy and verbal recapitulations. Impact of the techniques on learning was examined with a 2 × 2 factorial design experiment (N = 80), using a five story newscast. It was hypothesized that recapping would have a beneficial effect on understanding, based on its highlighting function, while a redundancy effect on recall was expected for visuals that reinforced words. As expected, high visual‐verbal redundancy produced greater viewer recall than did low redundancy. The addition of summary oral recaps improved understanding.