Perceptually fluent features of study words do not inflate judgements of learning: evidence from font size, highlights, and Sans Forgetica font type

Maxwell, Nicholas P.; Perry, Trevor T.; Huff, Mark J.

doi:10.1007/s11409-021-09284-6

Cited by 6 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The results of Experiments 2A and 2B are quite clear. First, consistent with our findings in Experiment 1 as well as other studies showing Sans Forgetica to be ineffective at promoting correct memory (e.g., Geller et al, 2020;Maxwell et al, 2022), Sans Forgetica produced no benefit on correct recognition relative to list items presented in Arial font. Second, Sans Forgetica was ineffective at reducing the DRM illusion on recognition as false recognition of critical lures did not differ between Sans Forgetica and Arial lists.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Our finding that correct recall did not differ as a function of font type is consistent with previous research showing no correct memory benefit of Sans Forgetica when compared to a more perceptually fluent font (e.g., Geller et al, 2020;Maxwell et al, 2022;Taylor et al, 2020). Additionally, our extension of this null pattern to false recall provides further evidence that Sans Forgetica is not effective at improving overall memory accuracy.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The goal of Experiment 1A was to test whether Sans Forgetica font would benefit memory within the context of the DRM paradigm using a within-subject design. Because previous research has shown no benefit of Sans Forgetica on correct memory (e.g., Geller et al, 2020;Maxwell et al, 2022), we similarly expected no benefit in correct recall for items presented in Sans Forgetica relative to Arial font. However, given that Arndt and Reder (2003) found that presenting DRM lists using unique, distinctive fonts reduced the DRM illusion by disrupting the fluency of the list, we anticipated that Sans Forgetica would produce a similar reduction such that false recall of critical items would be lower when study lists were presented using Sans Forgetica versus Arial font.…”

Section: Experiments 1a: Arial Versus Sans Forgetica Within-subject R...mentioning

confidence: 83%

“…Similar null effects on educational materials were echoed by Geller et al (2020) who found that Sans Forgetica had no effect on recognition discriminability. Finally, Maxwell et al (2022) found a Sans Forgetica cost on target recall of word pairs and, further, that participants did not expect Sans Forgetica pairs to be better remembered on a subsequent test compared to Arial pairs based on judgments of learning provided at study (cf. Geller & Peterson, 2021).…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Although initial benefits of Sans Forgetica were encouraging for both basic and applied contexts given the relative ease in which textual font types can be adjusted for educational materials, the effects of disfluent fonts on memory are mixed. While some disfluent fonts/word presentations have been shown to produce memory benefits (e.g., Diemand-Yauman et al, 2011;Sungkhasettee et al 2011), others produced no effects on correct memory (Arndt & Reder, 2003;Rhodes & Castel, 2008), and in some cases, have produced a memory cost (Eitel & Kühl, 2016;Kühl et al, 2014;Maxwell et al, 2022;Yue et al, 2013). A meta-analysis (Xie et al, 2018), however, indicated that perceptual disfluency in study materials, including those that were perceptually distorted, produced no effect on later recall relative to non-distorted controls, suggesting that disfluent materials may not procure benefits to correct memory.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Distinctive Sans Forgetica font does not benefit memory accuracy in the DRM paradigm

2022

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A common method used by memory scholars to enhance retention is to make materials more challenging to learn—a benefit termed desirable difficulties. Recently, researchers have investigated the efficacy of Sans Forgetica, a perceptually disfluent/distinctive font which may increase processing effort required at study and enhance memory as a result. We examined the effects of Sans Forgetica relative to a standard control font (Arial) on both correct memory and associative memory errors using the Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm, to evaluate Sans Forgetica effects on overall memory accuracy. Across four experiments, which included nearly 300 participants, Sans Forgetica was found to have no impact on correct or false memory of DRM lists relative to a standard Arial control font, regardless of whether font type was manipulated within or between subjects or whether memory was assessed via free recall or recognition testing. Our results indicate that Sans Forgetica is ineffective for improving memory accuracy even when accounting for associative memory errors.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Experiments 1a: Arial Versus Sans Forgetica Within-subject R...mentioning

confidence: 83%

mentioning

confidence: 96%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Distinctive Sans Forgetica font does not benefit memory accuracy in the DRM paradigm

2022

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It’s All About That Case

Hourihan,

Fawcett

2024

Experimental Psychology

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Prior evidence has indicated that the act of producing a word aloud is more effortful than reading a word silently, and this effort is related to the subsequent memory advantage for produced words. In the current study, we further examined the contributions of reading effort to the overall production effect by making silent reading more effortful. To do this, participants studied words that were presented in standard lowercase font format and words that were presented in an aLtErNaTiNg CaSe font format (which should be more effortful to read). Half of the words in each font condition were read aloud, and half were read silently. Participants completed an old/new recognition test. Experiment 1 was conducted online; Experiment 2 was conducted in-lab and recorded reading times at study to confirm that alternating case font slows reading. In both experiments, we found a production effect in recognition that was uninfluenced by font type. We also found that alternating case font selectively increased recollection (but not familiarity) relative to lowercase font. Thus, the additional time to read words in a disfluent font does not appear to interact with memory benefit of producing words aloud.

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Influence of letter shape on readers’ emotional experience, reading fluency, and text comprehension and memorisation

Medved

Podlešek²,

Možina³

2023

Front. Psychol.

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IntroductionThe amount of educational material delivered to pupils and students through digital screens is increasing. This method of delivering educational materials has become even more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. To be as effective as possible, educational material must be properly designed not only in terms of content, but also in terms of form, e.g., the typeface. The present study investigated the effect of letter shape on readers’ feelings of pleasantness during reading, reading fluency, and text comprehension and memorisation.MethodsTo find out whether age influences the effects of typeface shape on reading measures, we divided the participants into a group of less experienced readers (children) and more experienced readers (adults). Both groups read texts in eight different typefaces: four of them were round or in rounded shape, and four were angular or in pointed shape. With an eye-tracker, the reading speed and the number of regressive saccades were recorded as measures of reading fluency and changes in pupil size as an indicator of emotional response. After reading each text, the participants rated the pleasantness of the typeface, and their comprehension and memorisation of texts were checked by asking two questions about the text content.ResultsWe found that compared to angular letters or letters in pointed shape, round letters or letters in round shape created more pleasant feelings for readers and lead to a faster reading speed. Children, as expected, read more slowly due to less reading experiences, but, interestingly, had a similar number of regressive saccades and did not comprehend or remember the text worse than university students.DiscussionWe concluded that softer typefaces of rounder shapes should be used in educational materials, as they make the reading process easier and thus support the learning process better for both younger and adult readers. The results of our study also showed that a comparison of findings of different studies may depend on the differences among the used letter shapes.

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Perceptually fluent features of study words do not inflate judgements of learning: evidence from font size, highlights, and Sans Forgetica font type

Cited by 6 publications

References 35 publications

Distinctive Sans Forgetica font does not benefit memory accuracy in the DRM paradigm

Distinctive Sans Forgetica font does not benefit memory accuracy in the DRM paradigm

It’s All About That Case

Influence of letter shape on readers’ emotional experience, reading fluency, and text comprehension and memorisation

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