ABSTRACT
Pictures are illustrations that resemble the objects they depict, whereas graphs and diagrams are representations that are more abstract. Diagrams are abstract spatial layouts such as maps, Venn diagrams, and hierarchies. At a cognitive level, pictures can help us better understand ideas by providing illustrations of those ideas. Notice that viewing pictures is an important component of this procedure because of the requirement to compare drawings. The findings therefore raise the issue of identifying when animated pictures are more helpful than static pictures. Animated pictures are not always necessary because Hegarty's research on pulley problems and Schwartz and Black's research on gear problems showed that people could sometimes make causal inferences from mental simulations of static pictures. The chapter argues that the static pictures would be as effective as the animated pictures if there were no change in the rate of fill.
