The Influence of disfluent font on memory recall

By Emiliya Rakhaviya, 251429

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Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………3

Introduction……………………………………………………..3

Method………………………………………………..............4

- Design- Participants - Materials/apparatus- Procedure

Results……………………………………………………………..6

- Descriptive findings- Treatment/Analysis

Discussions……………………………………………………….7

References……………………………………………………… 8

Appendices………………………………………………………9

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The Abstract

The effect of disfluency on memory recall abilities was investigated in independent samples experiment. 20 university students (10 female, 10 male) were taken part in this experiment. They have read a list of high-frequency words in fluent and disfluent font style. The prediction of this study was that participants are likely to memorize more words in disfluent font rather than in fluent, similar to the findings of a study carried out by Diemand-Yauman et al (2010). In the end, results were found to be significant. A t-test gave P<0.005 and T=1.73 for a one-tailed test when DF=18, equal to the critical value of 1.73 at a 0.05 level of significance. Disfluency has a positive effect on memorizing information. However, it was recommended to do bigger experiment with larger number of participants to continue research in influence of disfluency on memory recall, as this experiment could be not relevant because of probability of pure luck.

The Introduction

There are many educators who believe that their ability to teach effectively depends on their natural ability to teach people and their experience of teaching (Book, Byers, &Freeman, 1983). However, the results of research showed that teaching instinctively can lead to education strategies which are harmful for learners (Bjork, 1994). Moreover, many education researchers assume that it is always better to reducing extraneous cognitive load is useful for the student (Sweller &Chandler, 1994). In other words if a student is going to learn new material easily it can be marked as a productive session by himself and the tutor even if student is unable to keep this information in mind in the future (Diemand-Yauman et al, 2010:p. 111).

In spite of learning difficulty, the edition cognitive burden can have a positive influence on long-term learning and keeping information (Bjork, 1994). “Desirable difficulties” is an ample name for additional cognitive load for education improvement (Diemand-Yauman et al, 2010: 111.). For example, there an experiment that took place where students were asked not just listen to information, but generate it as well (Richland, Bjork, Finley,& Lynn, 2005). Another experiment was taken place to see if cognitive burden helps to acquire study material by Hishman and Bjork (1988). They asked participants to put missed letters in pair of words (e.g. “salt: p_pp_r”). They found that participants presented better results in memorizing words with missing letters rather than participants who were asked to memorize another pair of word, but without any missing (e.g. “salt: pepper”). Furthermore, this experiment was carried out later in a natural setting in classes among students. The results showed the similar positive effects (Richland et al., 2005).

An example of cognitive burden is disfluency in reading. Disfluency can lead to deeper processing and better memory performance. Furthermore, disfluency is often used in marketing (Appendix 7), different types of font can have an influence on memory; for example, the font “Helvetica” for most people is associated with United States Government (Alex Bulat (2012) noted the ‘Font Psychology: What Your Font Says About Your Website’). This means that different font styles and especially disfluent font has an influence on memory recall.

Diemand-Yauman et al suggested that “disfluency could lead to improved retention and classroom performance” (2010: p.112). They did two experiments. In the first study they asked twenty-eight

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participants from Princeton University (US) (ages 18-40), to learn about tree species of alien. The first condition was written in disfluent font, the second one was written in a more fluent font style. The first group from the disfluent condition recalled 14% more than second group from the fluent condition (Diemand-Yauman et al, 2010: p.113). The second study was carried out on two hundred and twenty-two high school students (ages 15-18) from a public school in Chesterland (US). Each class was randomly assigned to a control and a disfluent category (2010: p.113). The experimenters decided to change all learning materials on poor copied/different font documents and gave them to the “disfluent” participants. After classes’ assessments were done the researchers measured results and the control group, which learning materials haven’t been changed, performed worse than disfluent (2010: p.113-114).

However, in some cases perceptual disfluency does not affect memory recall (Rhodes & Castel (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 137: p. 615–625, 2008)). Because of that, some aspects still need to be researched and sometimes disfluency can be non-desirable difficulty (Bjork, 1994). When it happens disfluency does not help. There were five experiments done, where participants asked to give judgments of learning (JOLs) (Carole L Yue et a, 2012: p.1). Subjects had to mark each word at a scale of 1-100 points. Participants were given multiple lists of blurred and clear words. From the first experiment it was discovered that subjects gave higher JOLs to perceptually fluent style (2012: p.4). In the end of whole experiment there was no difference between disfluent and fluent words. Despite this, the experimenters did found that there is a marginal effect on the format of the words (2012: p.4).

This report tells about mini-experiment that reproduces Diemand-Yauman et al. experiment, by using list of words in fluent and disfluent fonts to discover whether there is an influence on memory recall from disfluent font or not. The prediction in this investigation is that disfluency has positive effect on the memory performance.

The Method

The Design

An independent design was used for this experiment; participants were split into two groups and saw only one list of words. One group was given the list of thirty words in a fluent font (Appendix 1) and the other group received the same thirty words, but in a disfluent font ( Appendix2). The experiment was conducted in a laboratory setting, in a booked room in the library. Participants were also aloud to withdraw from the experiment at any time.

The Participants

20 people took part in the experiment (10 females and 10 males). All of them are currently students from 1, 2, 3 courses in Bath Spa University, England. Participants were found in the Newton Park Library (Bath). Participants were divided into two groups, each of 10 people. Every group consisted of 5 females and 5 males. Students were asked to take part in the experiment individually, to reduce the risk of distracting conditions in order to get a result with greater validity. Each subject was asked about any prior health conditions (presence of any signs of colds, depression) and the presence of dyslexia.

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Materials/Apparatus

For the experiment different equipment was used, such as a standardized ethics paper. List of thirty words (Wilson, M.D. (1988) in Calibri 14 font and “Bradley Hand ITC” 14 font, colorful markers, watches.

The Procedure

Student was asked to take part in the experiment. If so, he/she was given the ethics paper for him/her to read the conditions of the experiment and signed it. After the signing of the participation in the experiment, participant was asked to go to the reserved quiet room in the library; this environment helped to clear the subjects mind and eliminated any distractions, such as noise, or people passing etc. When the experimenter and the subject were sat in the quiet room at the table, the experimenter said:

"I want you to think of nothing and relax. I'll give you the words; you have to read them one by one. You will have a minute, take your time to read them carefully, don’t rush”.

After this the subject was given a piece of paper with 30 words in Calibri 14, after which the experimenter starting timing the participant as he/she began to read. After 30 seconds, when the participant said that he/she was ready, the participant was instructed:

"Great, now on this sheet I want you to draw me one of the four seasons using these markers, and try to draw as many details as you can."

After 3 minutes, the experimenter said:

"Very good, now overleaf I want you to write down all the words that you remember from the list that I gave you".

The participant turned the sheet over and began to write the words. A maximum of five minutes was given to each participant to write words he/she remembered. After this the subject handed the sheet with a picture and words back to the experimenter. The same procedure was carried out with the other 19 people, but with “Bradley Hand ITC” 14 font as well.

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Results

Descriptive finding

Table 1 shows that participants from the disfluent condition, as predicted, performed better than participants from fluent condition. “Disfluent” mean of 8.8 (SD 2.15) is relevant as well as “Fluent” mean of 6.3 (SD 1.7). Also, it is clear from Figure 1, that disfluency got more scores than fluency. Disfluent font had an impact on memory recall of approximately 28% more than fluent font. The difference between the two conditions is 2.5. The T-test will show evidence of significant results (Appendix 6).

Table 1 “Mean recall scores for the fluent and disfluent list of words”

Figure 1. “Results of subjects’ performance in fluent and disfluent conditions”

1- Fluent condition 2- Disfluent condition

Treatment of Results

In this section the results (Appendix 5) were tested with t-test of two-sample assuming equal variances, because there were two lists of words, but in different fonts and each participant was tested with only one condition. The one-tailed test is being conducted. The T-Critical value is 1.73 (Appendix 6).

Indeed the difference is significant. The second condition (mean: 8.8, SD: 2.15) is significantly higher than the first (mean: 6.3, SD: 1.7). The T-test result is T(18)=-2.88, P<0.05 (Appendix 6) . That is why the difference in memory recall and disfluency can be treated as significant.

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Discussion

As Bjork (1994) said that in some cases if material is harder to learn it can be improved by long –term learning and retention, so the evidence was received that more difficult font you use then more information you likely to memorize. It means that people can use disfluency in order to help to memorize information better. It was found that people who got words in disfluent font performed better on 28% than people who received words in fluent font. Also, in the research there wasn’t detected any oddities, such as a very high SD or existence of very high or low performance.

As it was predicted in the beginning of the experiment, disfluency can affect positively on the memory recall. Despite of the Diemand-Yauman’s experiment in school, it is still recommended to do a bigger experiment to support the conclusions, as it was also found in Carole L Yue et. a. research that disfluency does not affect positively memory recall.

The experiment was quite successful, taking into account that participants were not able to guess the aim of the experiment, which later could affect on the results. 20 participants were interviewed; it took about 7 minutes for each. In the beginning of the experiment some participants took about a minute to focus only at the experiment.

The disfluent font was picked up as much as possible like a fluent font, but so it was still difficult to read. It could be possibly to select a different font that resembled a fluent font to eliminate as much understanding of the purpose of the experiment.

The task to draw one of four weather seasons is very suitable to confuse a participant from guessing the purpose of the experiment and also to distract him from possible memorizing of words.

The restrictions to participate in the experiment were: dyslexia, cold and depression. All these aspects could have affected the results, so before to conduct an experiment it needs to be sure that there is a complete absence of all these restrictions. Also, during the experiment it was important to keep participants in quiet conditions to get the valid data.

It can also be taken into account that they were given words to be read, not a text, as is usually happens in our life. Probably if the text was proposed to read the results could be very different.

To sum up, it would be relevant to continue to study the effects of different fonts on remembering and explore a large number of people to finally determine whether the disfluent fonts have positive influence on memorization.

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References

Bjork, R. A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185–205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Book, C., Byers, J., & Freeman, D. (1983). Student expectations and teacher education traditions with which we can and cannot live. Journal of Teaching Education, 34(9), 1–9.

Bulat, A. (2012) ‘Font Psychology: What Your Font Says About Your Website’, Alex Bulat’s newslog, 16 May. Available at: http://blog.templatemonster.com/2012/05/16/font-psychology/ (Accessed: 5 December 2012).

Diemand-Yauman, C., Oppenheimer, D. M., & Vaughan, E. B. (2010). Fortune favors the bold (and the italicized): Effects of disfluency on educational outcomes. Cognition, 118, 111–115.

Hirshman, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (1988). The generation effect: Support for a two-factor theory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 14, 484–494.

Richland, L. E., Bjork, R. A., Finley, J. R., & Linn, M. C. (2005). Linking cognitive science to education: Generation and interleaving effects. In B. G. Bara, L. Barsalou, & M. Bucciarelli (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual conference of the cognitive science society. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Rhodes, M. G., & Castel, A. D. (2008). Memory predictions are influenced by perceptual information: Evidence for metacognitive illusions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 615–625.

Sweller, J., & Chandler, P. (1994). Why some material is difficult to learn. Cognition and Instruction, 12(3), 185–233.

Yue C. L, Castel A.D, Bjork R.A (2012) When disfluency is-and is not-a desirable difficulty: The influence of typeface clarity on meta-cognitive judgements and memory. Psychonomic Society Inc, 1-13. doi:10.3758/s13421-012-0255-8

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Appendices

Appendix 1- Fluent list of words, Calibri 14

attack, home, bedroom, blood, guy, wood, breakfast, church, crowd, doctor, estate, farm, fellow, garden, gun, individual, jury, king, lady, listen, military, night, payment, secretary, shore, shoulder, smile, river, uniform, town, youth

Appendix 2 –Disfluent list of words, Bradley Hand ITC 14

attack, home, bedroom, fellow, river, wood, breakfast, church, shoulder, doctor, military, farm, garden, secretary, individual, jury, king, lady, listen, estate , night, payment, gun, shore, youth, smile, guy, crowd, uniform, blood, town

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Appendix 3

PS4002/5002 Participant Information Sheet

Researcher(s): Emiliya Rakhaviya

Background and aims: Reading and processing verbal materials

I am looking for participants who fit the following description: M/F who has no problems with dyslexia (problem with reading). Who is healthy (no cold and depression). Age from 18-24.

What I would like you to do and how long it will take: I will give you a list of 30 words. You will have a min to read them and then you should draw detailed one of 4 weather seasons.

You are free to withdraw from this investigation at any time without having to give a reason. I will store any information you give me securely and destroy it at the end of this research project. I will ensure that you are not identifiable when results are reported.

The findings of the study will be made available at the end of the research project, which will be: 11.12.12

Thank you.

Investigator’s Name: Emiliya Rakhaviya Date: Signature:

...............................................................................................................................................................

Consent form

1. I have read and had explained to me information relating to the above project. 2. I understand the purposes of the project and what will be required of me. I agree to the

arrangements described in the information sheet, in so far as they relate to my participation.3. I understand that I have the right to withdraw at any time.4. I have received a copy of the debriefing information sheet.5.

Initials: Date: Initials: Date: Initials: Date:

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Appendix 4 - Debriefing sheet

Debriefing information sheet

Study title: The Influence of disfluent font on memory recall

Thank you for participating in this study.

The main aims in this study was/were: to check if there is any influence of disfluent font on memory recall.

One reason why understanding this is valuable is: the findings can be important in terms of having applications in education.

If you would like to read an article on this general topic, then please see:

If you would like more information, or have any further questions about any aspect of this study, then please contact me on my Bath Spa University e-mail address which is: emiliya.rakhaviya12@bathspa.ac.uk

If you later decide that you no longer want to be part of this study, please contact me to have your data destroyed.

The ethical aspects of this study have been approved by the Department of Psychology Ethics Review Committee. If you have any complaints or reservations about any ethical aspect of your participation in this research, contact the Ethics Committee through its Chair, Diane Stevens (telephone 01225 876280). Any complaint you make will be treated in confidence and investigated, and you will be informed of the outcome.

Please do not show this debriefing sheet or discuss any aspect of the study with other students . It is important that future participants do not have this information before taking part. Thanks!

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Appendix 5 – Raw Data

Table 2

Appendix 6

Table 3

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Table 4

Table 5

Appendix 7

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