The more, the worse? The influence of the seductive detail amount on learning

Abstract Seductive details, which are interesting but irrelevant digressions included in a learning environment (e.g., fun facts), have been shown to impair the learning performance of students. However, to date, it is unclear whether the amount of seductive detail content is crucial for the extent of this detrimental effect, or whether it is more a phenomenon of presence or absence, as other studies have been inconclusive in this regard. Hence, in the present studies ( N = 191 and N = 101), learners were presented with a varying amount of seductive detail content embedded within a learning text. Instead, the number of text interruptions by seductive content was kept constant between conditions. Both studies consistently showed a linear negative effect of the seductive detail amount on recall performance. Furthermore, Study 2 indicated a polynomial trend regarding transfer performance, suggesting that small seductive detail amounts could improve transfer, even though cross-validation showed that this model is rather unstable. Prior knowledge and working memory capacity did not significantly attenuate the seductive details effect. The results imply that the extent of the seductive detail effect is dependent on the amount of seductive detail content presented. Especially the inclusion of large amounts of digressions should be avoided by teachers and instructional designers, while the inclusion of small amounts might have rather negligible effects.