Abstract: The coherence principle of multimedia instruction asserts that the addition of interesting material can hurt or impede learning. Interesting material is understood as extraneous information. Extraneous information includes (1) entertaining stories that are related but not essential to the instructional objective, (2) background music and environmental sounds, and (3) images or detailed textual descriptions. While numerous studies provide foundation for the multimedia principles, there is little if any discussion on the cultural backgrounds of the subjects in studies testing the principles. Thus, there is a dearth of investigation as to whether culture plays a role in learning from instructional content that has been designed either with or without the coherence principle.