At the start of his 90-minute lecture on child development, Professor Mentyl shows his class a 10 minute home video of his own young children playing with their pet dog. When students later take an exam on this lecture, Professor Mentyl finds that the students didn't remember the details of the critical child development theories that were the focus of the above lecture. This effect has come to be known as
A) the spacing effect
B) the seductive detail effect
C) the generation effect
D) verbal overshadowing

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This effect is known as the seductive detail effect, which refers to how the presence of interesting but irrelevant information can hinder the ability to remember important information. In this case, the cute video of Professor Mentyl's children and pet dog likely captured the students' attention more than the critical child development theories, leading to a memory bias towards the former.

At the Start of His 90-Minute Lecture on Child Development