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The spatial contiguity principle is that people learn and perform better when corresponding printed text and graphics are placed near rather than far from each other on the screen or page. This is a well-established design principle in multimedia learning. However, there is insufficient research to establish the appropriate distance between text and graphics that is conducive for integrative processing. The current study examines a new objective indicator of spatial contiguity based on the characteristics of human visual processing, and hypothesizes that corresponding text and graphic information presented within parafoveal vision promotes integrative processing better than information in peripheral vision. Experiments 1 and 2 asked participants to judge the similarities of two text–picture cards and found that presenting the two cards within parafoveal vision (rather than peripheral vision) led to faster comparison (in both Experiments) and higher scores (only in Experiment 2) for a simple version of the comparison task, but did not lower cognitive load. Experiment 3 found that students who viewed an onscreen multimedia lesson that presented corresponding text–picture information in parafoveal vision (rather than peripheral vision) scored higher on retention and application tests and experienced lower cognitive load measured by a secondary task. Across all three experiments, eye-tracking results showed presenting corresponding text–picture information in parafoveal vision yielded more integrative saccades and longer fixation time on text, indicating that spatial contiguity encourages integrative processing. This study replicates and extends the spatial contiguity effect, and offers a new quantifiable indicator of spatial continuity for the future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
