Abstract
Fictional materials are commonly used in the classroom to teach course content. Both laboratory experiments and classroom demonstrations illustrate the benefits of using fiction to help students learn accurate information about the world. However, fictional sources often contain factually inaccurate content, making them a potent vehicle for learning misinformation about the world. We briefly review theoretical issues relevant to whether learners process fictional sources differently before exploring how individual differences, learning activities, and assessment characteristics may affect learning from fiction. This review focuses on our own experimental approaches for studying learning from fiction, including learning from short stories and from films, while connecting to a broader educational literature on learning from fictional sources. Throughout the review, implications for educational use and future directions for experimental research are noted.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Appel, M. (2008). Fictional narratives cultivate just-world beliefs. Journal of Communication, 58, 62–83.
Appel, M., & Richter, T. (2007). Persuasive effects of fictional narratives increase over time. Media Psychology, 10, 113–134.
Anderson, J. R. (1981). Effects of prior knowledge on memory for new information. Memory & Cognition, 9, 237–246.
Ausubel, D. P., & Blake, E. (1958). Proactive inhibition in the forgetting of meaningful school material. The Journal of Educational Research, 52, 145–149.
Barber, S. J., Rajaram, S., & Marsh, E. J. (2008). Distinguishing among remembered, familiar, and just known memories: An experimental analysis. Memory, 16, 934–946.
Barnett, M., & Kafka, A. (2007). Using science fiction movie scenes to support critical analysis of science. Journal of College Science Teaching, 36, 31–35.
Bauer, P. J., & San Souci, P. (2010). Going beyond the facts: Young children extend knowledge by integrating episodes. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 107, 452–465.
Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York: David McKay Company Inc.
Bottoms, H. C., Eslick, A. N., & Marsh, E. J. (2010). Memory and the Moses illusion: Failures to detect contradictions with stored knowledge yielded negative memorial consequences. Memory, 18, 670–678.
Bowen, J. (1972). A history of Western education. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Brabham, E., Boyd, P., & Edgington, W. (2000). Sorting it out: Elementary students’ responses to fact and fiction in informational storybooks as read-alouds for science and social studies. Reading Research and Instruction, 29(4), 265–290.
Brophy, J., & VanSledright, B. (1997). Teaching and learning history in elementary schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
Butler, A. C., Dennis, N. A., & Marsh, E. J. (2012). Inferring facts from fiction: Reading correct and incorrect information affects memory for related information. Memory, 20, 487–498.
Butler, A. C., Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2007). The effect of type and timing of feedback on learning from multiple-choice tests. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 13, 273–281.
Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2008). Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing. Memory & Cognition, 36, 604–616.
Butler, A. C., Zaromb, F., Lyle, K. B., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2009). Using popular films to enhance classroom learning: The good, the bad, and the interesting. Psychological Science, 20, 1161–1168.
Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., & Kao, C. F. (1984). The efficient assessment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48, 306–307.
Chiesi, H. L., Spilich, G. J., & Voss, J. F. (1979). Acquisition of domain-related information in relation to high and low domain knowledge. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 257–274.
Collett, J. L., Kelly, S., & Sobolewski, C. (2010). Using Remember the Titans to teach theories of conflict reduction. Teaching Society, 38, 258–266.
Coté, N., Goldman, S. R., & Saul, E. U. (1998). Students making sense of informational text: Relations between processing and representation. Discourse Processes, 25, 1–53.
Craik, F. I. M., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 11, 671–684.
Craik, F. I. M., & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 268–294.
Daisey, P. (1994). The value of trade books in secondary science and mathematics instruction: A rationale. School Science and Mathematics, 94, 130–137.
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450–466.
Dempster, F. N. (1989). Spacing effects and their implications for theory and practice. Educational Psychology Review, 1, 309–330.
Dooling, D. J., & Mullet, R. L. (1973). Locus of thematic effects in retention of prose. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 97, 404–406.
Dubeck, L. W., Moshier, S. E., & Boss, J. E. (2004). Fantastic voyages: Learning science through science fiction films. New York: Springer.
Einstein, G. O., McDaniel, M. A., Owen, P. D., & Coté, N. C. (1990). Encoding and recall of texts: The importance of material appropriate processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 566–581.
Elliott, D. L., & Woodward, A. (Eds.). (1990). Textbooks and schooling in the United States: Eighty-ninth yearbook of the National Society of Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Erickson, T. D., & Mattson, M. E. (1981). From words to meaning: A semantic illusion. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 549–551.
Eslick, A. N., Fazio, L. K., & Marsh, E. J. (2011). Ironic effects of drawing attention to story errors. Memory, 19, 184–191.
Fazio, L. K., Barber, S. J., Rajaram, S., Ornstein, P. A., & Marsh, E. J. (2012). Creating illusions of knowledge: Learning errors that contradict prior knowledge. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. doi:10.1037/a0028649.
Fazio, L. K., & Marsh, E. J. (2008a). Older, not younger, children learn more from false facts from stories. Cognition, 106, 1081–1089.
Fazio, L. K., & Marsh, E. J. (2008b). Slowing presentation time increases, rather than decreases, errors learned from fictional stories. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 15, 180–185.
Friesen, N. (2011). The lecture as a transmedial pedagogical form: A historical analysis. Educational Research, 40, 95–102.
Ganea, P. A., Pickard, M. B., & DeLoache, J. S. (2008). Transfer between picture books and the real world by very young children. Journal of Cognition and Development, 9, 46–66.
Garner, R., Gillingham, M. G., & White, C. S. (1989). Effects of “seductive details” on macroprocessing and microprocessing in adults and children. Cognition and Instruction, 6, 41–57.
Gerrig, R. J. (1989). Suspense in the absence of uncertainty. Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 633–648.
Gerrig, R. J. (1993). Experiencing narrative worlds: On the psychological activities of reading. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gerrig, R. J., & Prentice, D. A. (1991). The representation of fictional information. Psychological Science, 2, 336–340.
Gerrig, R. J., & Rapp, D. N. (2004). Psychological processes underlying literary impact. Poetics Today, 25, 265–281.
Goswick, A. E., Mullet, H. G., & Marsh, E. J. (2012). Age differences in suggestibility: Can production difficulties and source monitoring explain a developmental reversal? Journal of Cognition and Development. (in press).
Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 701–721.
Green, M. C. (2006). Narratives and cancer communication. Journal of Communication, 56, S163–S183.
Green, M. C., Brock, T. C., & Kaufman, G. F. (2004). Understanding media enjoyment: The role of transportation into narrative worlds. Communication Theory, 14, 311–327.
Green, M. C., Garst, J., & Brock, T. C. (2004). The power of fiction: Determinants and boundaries. In The psychology of entertainment media: blurring the lines between entertainment and persuasion. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Green, M. C., Garst, J., Brock, T. C., & Chung, S. (2006). Fact versus fiction labeling: Persuasion parity despite heightened scrutiny of fact. Media Psychology, 8, 267–285.
Greene, E., Flynn, M., & Loftus, E. (1982). Inducing resistance to misleading information. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 21, 207–219.
Grove, M. (2000). Warning: This culture will self-destruct in 5 seconds (p. 16). London: The Times.
Harp, S. F., & Mayer, R. E. (1998). How seductive details do their damage: A theory of cognitive interest in science learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 414–434.
Haynes, C., & Richgels, D. (1992). Fourth graders’ literature preferences. The Journal of Educational Research, 85, 208–219.
Hoffman, H., Granhag, P., See, S., & Loftus, E. (2001). Social influences on reality-monitoring decisions. Memory & Cognition, 29, 394–404.
Howe, M. L. (1991). Misleading children’s story recall: Forgetting and reminiscence of the facts. Developmental Psychology, 27, 746–762.
Hovland, C. I., & Weiss, W. (1951). The influence of source credibility on communication effectiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15, 635–650.
Janit, A. S., Hammock, G. S., & Richardson, D. S. (2011). The power of fiction: Reading stories in abnormal psychology. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 5, 1–14.
Jenkins, J. J. (1979). Four points to remember: A tetrahedral model of memory experiments. In L. S. Cermak & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), Levels of processing and human memory. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Kennedy, F. N., Senses, N., & Ayan, P. (2011). Grasping the social through movies. Teaching in Higher Education, 16, 1–14.
Kole, J. A., & Healy, A. F. (2007). Using prior knowledge to minimize interference when learning large amounts of information. Memory & Cognition, 35, 124–137.
Lewis, C. H., & Anderson, J. R. (1976). Interference with real world knowledge. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 311–335.
Lorch, E. P., Sanchez, R. P., van den Broek, P., Milich, R., Murphy, E. L., Lorch, R. J., Jr., & Welsh, R. (1999). The relation of story structure properties to recall of television stories in young children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and nonreferred peers. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 27, 293–309.
Mar, R. A., & Oatley, K. (2008). The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 173–192.
Marcus, A. S. (2005). “It is as it was”: Feature film in the history classroom. The Social Studies, 96, 61–67.
Marcus, A. S. (2007). Celluloid blackboard: Teaching history with film. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
Marcus, A., & Monaghan, M. (2009). Tasting the fluoride: Feature film, women’s history, and modern-day critical consciousness. Social Studies Research & Practice, 4, 1–30.
Marcus, A. S., Paxton, R. J., & Meyerson, P. (2006). “The reality of it all”: History students read the movies. Theory and Research in Social Education, 34, 516–552.
Marsh, E. J. (2004). Story stimuli for creating false beliefs about the world. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36, 650–655.
Marsh, E. J., & Fazio, L. K. (2006). Learning errors from fiction: Difficulties in reducing reliance on fictional stories. Memory & Cognition, 34, 1140–1149.
Marsh, E. J., & Fazio, L. K. (2007). Learning from fictional sources. In J. Nairne (Ed.), The foundations of remembering: Essays in honor of Henry L. Roediger III (pp. 397–413). New York: Psychology Press.
Marsh, E. J., Meade, M. L., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2003). Learning facts from fiction. Journal of Memory and Language, 49, 519–536.
Mayer, D. A. (1995). How can we best use literature in teaching? Science and Children, 32, 16–19.
McDaniel, M. A., Blischak, D., & Einstein, G. O. (1995). Understanding the special mnemonic characteristics of fairy tales. In C. A. Weaver, III, S. Mannes, & C. R. Fletcher (Eds.), Discourse comprehension: Essays in honor of Walter Kintsch (pp. 157–176). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
McDaniel, M. A., & Butler, A. C. (2010). A contextual framework for understanding when difficulties are desirable. In A. S. Benjamin (Ed.), Successful remembering and successful forgetting: Essays in honor of Robert A. Bjork (pp. 175–199). New York: Psychology Press.
McDaniel, M. A., & Einstein, G. O. (1989). Material-appropriate processing: A contextualist approach to reading and studying strategies. Educational Psychology Review, 1, 113–145.
McDaniel, M. A., Hines, R. J., Waddell, P. J., & Einstein, G. O. (1994). What makes folk tales unique: Content familiarity, causal structure, scripts, or superstructures? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 169–184.
Nelson, T. O., & Narens, L. (1980). Norms of 300 general-information questions: Accuracy of recall, latency of recall, and feeling-of-knowledge ratings. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 338–368.
Niemi, R. (2006). History in the media: Film and television. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
Nokes, J. D. (2008). Aligning literary practices in secondary history classes with research on learning. Literary Practices in History, 3, 29–55.
O’Connor, J. E. (1987). Teaching history with film and television. Washington: American Historical Association.
Owens, C. V. (2003). Nonsense, sense, and science: Misconceptions and illustrated trade books. Journal of Children’s Literature, 29, 55–62.
Palmer, J., & Burroughs, S. (2002). Integrating children’s literature and song into the social studies. The Social Studies, 93, 73–78.
Peshkam, A., Mensink, M. C., Putnam, A. L., & Rapp, D. N. (2011). Warning readers to avoid irrelevant information: When being vague might be valuable. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36, 219–231.
Peterson, S. B., & Potts, G. R. (1982). Global and specific components of information integration. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 21, 403–420.
Potts, G. R., St. John, M. F., & Kirson, D. (1989). Incorporating new information into existing world knowledge. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 303–333.
Prentice, D. A., Gerrig, R. J., & Bailis, D. S. (1997). What readers bring to the processing of fictional texts. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4, 416–420.
Rapp, D. N. (2008). How do readers handle incorrect information during reading? Memory & Cognition, 36, 688–701.
Rice, D. C. (2002). Using trade books in teaching elementary science: Facts and fallacies. The Reading Teacher, 55, 552–565.
Robinson, C., Larsen, J., Haupt, J., & Mohlman, J. (1997). Picture book selection behaviors of emergent readers: Influence of genre, familiarity, and book attributes. Reading Research and Instruction, 36, 287–304.
Roediger, H. L., III. (2000). Why retrieval is the key process to understanding human memory. In E. Tulving (Ed.), Memory, consciousness and the brain: The Tallinn conference (pp. 52–75). Philadelphia: Psychology Press.
Roediger, H. L., III, & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 20–27.
Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing memory: Basic research and implications for educational practice. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 181–210.
Rose, C. (2003). How to teach biology using the movie science of cloning people, resurrecting the dead and combining flies and humans. Public Understanding of Science, 12, 289–296.
Roser, N., & Keehn, S. (2002). Fostering thought, talk, and inquiry: Linking literature and social studies. The Reading Teacher, 55, 416–426.
Royce, C. A., & Wiley, D. A. (1996). Children’s literature and the teaching of science: Possibilities and cautions. Clearing House, 70, 18–20.
Rubin, D. C. (1995). Memory in oral traditions: The cognitive psychology of epic, ballads, and counting-out rhymes. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sadoski, M. (2001). Resolving the effects of concreteness on interest, comprehension, and learning important ideas from text. Educational Psychology Review, 13, 263–281.
Saldana, J. (2008). Popular film as an instructional strategy in qualitative research methods courses. Qualitative Inquiry, 15, 247–261.
Sanchez, C. A., & Wiley, J. (2006). An examination of the seductive details effect in terms of working memory capacity. Memory & Cognition, 34, 344–355.
Schacter, D. L., Harbluk, J. L., & McLachlan, D. R. (1984). Retrieval without recollection: An experimental analysis of source amnesia. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 23, 593–611.
Schaffer, L. S. (1927). A learning experiment in the social studies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 18, 557–591.
Schooler, J. W., Reichle, E. D., & Halpern, D. V. (2005). Zoning-out during reading: Evidence for dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness. In D. T. Levin (Ed.), Thinking and seeing: Visual metacognition in adults and children (pp. 204–226). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Shafto, M., & MacKay, D. G. (2000). The Moses, mega-Moses, and Armstrong illusions: Integrating language comprehension and semantic memory. Psychological Science, 11, 372–378.
Shafto, M. A., & MacKay, D. G. (2010). Miscomprehension, meaning, and phonology: The unknown and phonological Armstrong illusions. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 22, 529–568.
Short, G. (1997). Learning through literature: Historical fiction, autobiography, and the holocaust. Children’s Literature in Education, 28, 179–190.
Silvia, P. J. (2005). What is interesting? Exploring the appraisal structure of interest. Emotion, 5, 89–102.
Silvia, P. J. (2006). Exploring the psychology of interest. New York: Oxford University Press.
Silvia, P. J., & Berg, C. (2011). Finding movies interesting: How appraisals and expertise influence the aesthetic experience of film. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 29, 73–88.
Smith, J. A. (1993). Content learning: A third reason for using literature in teaching reading. Reading, Research, and Instruction, 32, 64–71.
Smith, G. W. (2009). Using feature films as the primary instructional medium to teach organizational behavior. Journal of Management Education, 33, 462–489.
Smith, V. L., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1987). The social psychology of eyewitness accuracy: Misleading questions and communicator expertise. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 294–300.
Stanovich, K. E., & Cunningham, A. E. (1993). Where does knowledge come from? Specific associations between print exposure and information acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 211–229.
Stevens, B. (2003). American history through feature films: A middle school unit. Film & History, 33, 65–69.
Trundle, K. C., Troland, T. H., & Pritchard, T. G. (2008). Representations of the Moon in children’s literature: An analysis of written and visual text. Journal of Elementary Science Education, 20, 17–28.
Umanath, S., Butler, A. C., & Marsh, E. J. (2012). Positive and negative effects of monitoring popular films for historical inaccuracies. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 556–567.
Umanath, S. & Marsh, E. J. (2012). Aging and the memorial consequences of catching contradictions with prior knowledge. Psychology & Aging. doi:10.1037/a0027242.
Underwood, J., & Pezdek, K. (1998). Memory suggestibility as an example of the sleeper effect. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 6, 136–141.
Van den Broek, P., Virtue, S., Everson, M. G., Tzeng, Y., & Sung, Y. (2002). Comprehension and memory of science texts: Inferential processes and the construction of a mental representation. In The psychology of science text comprehension. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ventura, S., & Onsman, A. (2009). The use of popular movies during lectures to aid the teaching and learning of undergraduate pharmacology. Medical Teacher, 31, 662–664.
Wheeler, S. C., Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (1999). Fictional narratives change beliefs: Replications of Prentice, Gerrig, and Bailis (1997) with mixed corroboration. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 6, 136–141.
Wolfe, M. B. W. (2005). Memory for narrative and expository text: Independent influences of semantic associations and text organization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 359–364.
Wolfe, M. B. W., & Mienko, J. A. (2007). Learning and memory of factual content from narrative and expository text. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 541–564.
Zwaan, R. A. (1994). Effects of genre expectations on text comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 920–933.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a collaborative award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation. We thank Meredith Mechanik for assistance with manuscript preparation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Marsh, E.J., Butler, A.C. & Umanath, S. Using Fictional Sources in the Classroom: Applications from Cognitive Psychology. Educ Psychol Rev 24, 449–469 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9204-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9204-0