Recent neuroscience research has revealed the presence of multiple brain networks underlying functional human psychology. One of these, the default mode network (DMN), has been shown to underlie sustained attention to and comprehension of narrative receptive media such as television. We argue that DMN activation enhances learning of temporal and spatial context and that this type of learning is characteristic of receptive media. We hypothesize that response demands during interactive screen media use deactivates the DMN as other brain networks are activated. We suggest that overt responding to interactive demands requires highly focused attention and enhances stimulus-response-goal associative learning at the expense of learning about temporal and spatial context. Receptive and interactive screen media, therefore, enhance different types of comprehension and learning.

A trend in educational media programming for adults and children has been to use multiple media platforms presenting both interactive and non-interactive content. Evaluation research of such “transmedia” or “cross platform” programming has indicated that the multiple media approach may be more educationally effective than use of a single medium (Fisch, Damashak & Aladé, ۲۰۱۶; Raybourn, 2014). A question arises as to whether there is a principled reason to use an interactive or non-interactive screen medium with respect to particular educational goals. Here, we will argue that there is reason to believe that interactive screen media enhance different types of learning than receptive (noninteractive) media. The argument is based on the hypothesis that each medium tends to activate different functional brain networks. In 2006, in a special issue of the journal Media Psychology, a diverse group of researchers argued that then-new noninvasive neuroimaging could be usefully applied to studying screen media (Anderson, Bryant, et al., 2006). One of the papers in that special issue concerned the identification of cortical regions that were uniquely activated while adults watched coherent filmic montage taken from Hollywood movies as compared to activation while watching random (as well as highly fragmented) sequences of the same shots (Anderson, Fite, Petrovich, & Hirsch, 2006). That paper argued that the pattern of activation was highly suggestive of a coherent cortical network utilized for comprehension of filmic montage. Two cortical regions were central to that hypothesized network: posterior cingulate cortex, and inferior parietal lobule (see Fig. 1). These regions have been identified as part of a neural network known as the default mode network (DMN; Buckner, Andrews-Hanna, & Schacter, 2008; Raichle et al., 2001).