Process modeling involves creating diagrammatic representations of business processes, commonly employed for collaborative efforts, information exchange, and documentation. Considerable challenges hinder the training and learning of process modeling in comprehending process models, primarily due to the absence of systematic teaching approaches. Although various visualization and animation techniques, such as tokens and highlighting, exhibit significant potential in enhancing the guidance of modelers, this area remains underexplored. This research delves into an in-depth exploration of animated process model comprehension by novice modelers with a focus on comparing the two animation features. The study compares the effects of tokens and highlighting in process models on their comprehension by novice modelers, measuring their objective comprehension (correct answers, time to completion), subjective comprehension (subjective cognitive load and technology acceptance) and interactions (NASA-TLX survey and semi-structured feedback on survey questions). The paper confirms similarity in using both types of animation to improve the comprehension of novice modelers and suggests pedagogical implications for using animations to improve novice modelers’ comprehension and learning outcomes.