Touch and Watch: When is directly touching animations and videos helpful for learning?

Prior research shows that visuospatial processing is enhanced near the hands. This near-hand effect plays a crucial role on multi-touch devices, where learners use their hands and fingers to interact directly with the depicted objects. Two experiments aimed at investigating whether hand proximity fosters learning with dynamic visualizations on a multi-touch monitor in two domains (conceptual and perceptual). The samples comprised 82 participants. Participants watched animations in a conceptual domain (biological processes; Experiment 1) or videos in a perceptual domain (human movements; Experiment 2) on a multi-touch monitor. In both studies, participants were randomly assigned to one of two hand-proximity conditions (near-hand versus far-hand). In the near-hand condition, they held their hands close to the dynamic visualizations, whereas in the far-hand condition, they placed their hands in their lap while watching the visualizations. Additionally, participants’ visuospatial ability was assessed to investigate its potential moderating role while learning about dynamic processes. Learning outcomes were measured using recognition, relational tasks, and factual knowledge items. Results showed a near-hand effect in both experiments: In Experiment 1, participants generally showed better learning outcomes in relational tasks in the near-hand condition, whereas in Experiment 2, only participants with higher visuospatial ability showed better recognition performance in the near-hand condition. These findings provide first evidence that hand proximity influences the learning of dynamic visuospatial information and indicate the task specificity of near-hand effects. Results and implications for user interactions and learning with multi-touch devices are discussed.