An extension of the conflict between visualization and reading

An experiment is reported which suggests that reading about a series of spatial relations and visualizing them are activities which interfere with one another. Subjects were given sentences which described a set of spatial relations. After the spatial layout described by a given sentence had been deduced, the subjects either read or listened to a final presentation of this same sentence. It was found that the modality of this final presentation influenced the speed with which the subjects performed a subsequent mental transformation of the spatial relations; the transformation was completed more slowly immediately after reading the sentence than after listening to it. This result confirms the subjects' reports that their visualization of the spatial relations was interrupted by reading the sentence, but not by listening to it. The relation between the visual and the analogical aspects of visualization is briefly discussed.