Which representation is best for communicating dynamic information?

The aim of this study was to investigate how expert and novice learners integrate dynamic information from two types of representations, namely auditory description and arrow symbols. Participants were required to perform both recognition and recall tests and rate their invested mental effort after studying two representations in four different orders of presentation (audio → audio, arrow → arrow, arrow → audio, or audio → arrow). When the same representation is presented twice, the results demonstrated the superiority of the spatial representation over the verbal representation for novice learners. However, when comparing the representations, it was found that novice learners achieved higher levels of performance when they had received audio first and then arrows, while expert learners showed the same level of performance regardless of the sequence of representations. Implications for improving instructional design techniques aimed at the acquisition of temporal information are discussed.