Can Bold Typeface Improve Readers’ Comprehension and Metacomprehension of Negation?

Margolin, Sara J.

doi:10.1080/02702711.2011.626107

Cited by 13 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Data demonstrated that negated text is more difficult to understand and remember than text that does not contain negation, an effect that has been demonstrated time and again (e.g., Carpenter et al, 1999;Cornish, 1971;Cornish & Wason, 1970;Fishler et al, 1983;Hoosain, 1973;Just & Carpenter, 1971;Kaup, 2001;Kaup et al, 2004;Kaup & Zwaan, 2003;Kaup et al, 2007;Ludtke et al, 2008;Macdonald & Just, 1989;Margolin & Hover, 2011;Margolin, 2013;Sherman, 1973). Previous research has also shown that it is not just young adults that have this difficulty; older adults also have difficulty with negated text (Margolin & Abrams, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Alternatively, we might indicate that Jane is not happy, which would change the meaning of the concept. Research on negation has long established that sentences that contain negation are more difficult for young adults to understand and more difficult to remember than texts that do not contain these types of structures (e.g., Carpenter, Just, Keller, Eddy, & Thulborn, 1999;Cornish, 1971;Cornish & Wason, 1970;Fishler, Bloom, Childers, Roucos, & Perry, 1983;Hoosain, 1973;Just & Carpenter, 1971;Kaup, 2001;Kaup, Dijkstra, & Ludtke, 2004;Kaup & Zwaan, 2003;Kaup, Zwaan, & Ludtke, 2007;Ludtke, Friedrich, De Filippis, & Kaup, 2008;Macdonald & Just, 1989;Margolin & Abrams, 2009;Margolin & Hover, 2011;Margolin, 2013;Sherman, 1973). Additionally, when experimental tasks require participants to process negation, the response time to recognition and naming probes increases (e.g., Kaup, 2001;MacDonald & Just, 1989;Sherman, 1973), suggesting that more work needs to be done to correctly represent text that contains negation in memory.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

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Older Adults’ Comprehension of Transformational and Deactivation Negation

Margolin

2015

Educational Gerontology

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The present research aimed to examine young and older adults' comprehension of negated text to determine the locus of older adults' difficulty in understanding this text construction. Participants were asked to read short passages at their own pace, complete a lexical decision task, and answer a comprehension question about what they had read. Older adults' comprehension accuracy was lower than that of young adults for passages containing transformational negation. This suggests that limited working memory resources led to older adults' difficulty with negation, not a difficulty with inhibition, as what would have been suggested with difficulties with deactivation negation.In both spoken and written language, negation (i.e., words such as no, not, or never) is used as a way to either deny the existence of or change the meaning of a concept. For example, we might indicate that there is no bread in the breadbox, whereby bread does not exist. Alternatively, we might indicate that Jane is not happy, which would change the meaning of the concept. Research on negation has long established that sentences that contain negation are more difficult for young adults to understand and more difficult to remember than texts that do not contain these types of

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Older Adults’ Comprehension of Transformational and Deactivation Negation

Margolin

2015

Educational Gerontology

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“…Nevertheless, readers were unable to connect their awareness of the difficulty of the text to the ability to use that information to help their reading comprehension. Additionally, in order to determine whether a commonly used presentation method (i.e., bold typeface) would help readers in applying their metacomprehension to their comprehension of negation, Margolin () investigated whether placing the negation in a bold typeface would assist readers in their comprehension and metacomprehension of negation. However, the bold typeface was only sufficient in calling a reader's attention to the negation.…”

Section: Aims and Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Save for one recent study (Margolin, ), the metacomprehension literature has not distinguished among strategies that may help readers with different types of difficult text (e.g., embedded clauses, negation). That is, would the same strategies assist readers in their comprehension and metacomprehension when text is sufficiently difficult, as it may be when constructions such as negation are present?…”

Section: Aims and Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

It may not be that difficult the second time around: the effects of rereading on the comprehension and metacomprehension of negated text

Margolin

Snyder

2017

Journal Research in Reading

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The present research explored the awareness that readers have of the difficulty of negative text and aimed to determine whether rereading could impact comprehension and metacomprehension. Participants read passages that sometimes contained negative words such as 'no' and 'not', rated their comprehension, and answered a comprehension question about the passage. Half of the passages were read twice and rated again before the participant was prompted to answer a comprehension question. Results showed that passages that were read twice were rated as easier to understand, and questions that corresponded with those passages were answered with higher accuracy as well. However, these improvements were not exclusive to negated passages. And, while participants were aware that the negative passages were harder to comprehend, this understanding did not aid in heightened comprehension of the negative text. Rereading was demonstrated to be a helpful strategy overall but was not sufficient to specifically help with negation. What is already known about this topic• Negation is a type of text construction that is difficult for readers to process and remember. • Readers are aware that negation is difficult, but they are often unable to use this awareness to do anything to improve their comprehension of the text.• Readers have shown some success in improving their comprehension and metacomprehension of text by rereading the text. What this paper adds• While it would seem intuitive that rereading a difficult text construction, like negation, would lead to a reader's improvement in text comprehension, this was not the case. The improvements that were demonstrated in comprehension were not specific to negative passages.• However, rereading did help readers improve metacomprehension for negated text, which indicates that while readers are more aware of the difficulty they are having with the text, they are still having difficulty.• Unfortunately, coupled with the finding that improvements in comprehension were not specific to negated text, it becomes apparent that the awareness

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“…The instruction design is based on established research result: pictures and short sentences are used for better reading comprehension [12], and keywords are underlined and set in bold to improve information cognition [13]. Furthermore, instructions were set in a logical order and written in plain language, based on the guidelines recommended in [14], [15], and [16].…”

Section: A Instructionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing Precautionary Behavior by Temporal Diversion of Voter Attention from Casting to Verifying their Vote

Budurushi¹,

Woide²,

Volkamer³

2014

Proceedings 2014 Workshop on Usable Security

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Most electronic voting systems in use today provide printouts so called voter verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs). Voters are supposed to verify these before they put them into the ballot box in order to detect election fraud. A number of studies have shown that voters are unlikely to do so when using current systems. Thus, it is very likely that malicious electronic voting systems print the wrong candidates without being detected. We introduce precautionary behavior by providing voters with "just in time" instructions while ensuring that these instructions cannot be manipulated by a malicious electronic voting system. Our approach is evaluated in a user study, showing a highly significant increase in the number of voters that verify, as they found the manipulation we introduced in the printouts for the study. Permission to freely reproduce all or part of this paper for noncommercial purposes is granted provided that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Reproduction for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited without the prior written consent of the Internet Society, the first-named author (for reproduction of an entire paper only), and the author's employer if the paper was prepared within the scope of employment.

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Can Bold Typeface Improve Readers’ Comprehension and Metacomprehension of Negation?

Cited by 13 publications

References 28 publications

Older Adults’ Comprehension of Transformational and Deactivation Negation

Older Adults’ Comprehension of Transformational and Deactivation Negation

It may not be that difficult the second time around: the effects of rereading on the comprehension and metacomprehension of negated text

Introducing Precautionary Behavior by Temporal Diversion of Voter Attention from Casting to Verifying their Vote

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