Taylor, Andrea, Sanson, Mevagh, Burnell, Ryan, Wade, Kimberley A. and Garry, Maryanne (2020) Disfluent difficulties are not desirable difficulties : the (lack of) effect of Sans Forgetica on memory. Memory . doi:10.1080/09658211.2020.1758726 (In Press)

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Abstract

Scientists working at the intersection of cognitive psychology and education have developed theoretically-grounded methods to help people learn. One important yet counterintuitive finding is that making information harder to learn – that is, creating desirable difficulties – benefits learners. Some studies suggest that simply presenting information in a difficult-to-read font could serve as a desirable difficulty and therefore promote learning. To address this possibility, we examined the extent to which Sans Forgetica, a newly developed font, improves memory performance – as the creators of the font claim. Across four experiments, we set out to replicate unpublished findings by the font’s creators. Subjects read information in Sans Forgetica or Arial, and rated how difficult the information was to read (Experiment 1) or attempted to recall the information (Experiments 2–4). Although subjects rated Sans Forgetica as being more difficult to read than Arial, Sans Forgetica led to equivalent memory performance, and sometimes even impaired it. These findings suggest that although Sans Forgetica promotes a feeling of disfluency, it does not create a desirable difficulty or benefit memory.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology L Education > LB Theory and practice of education Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z004 Books. Writing. Paleography
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Type and type-founding , Cognitive psychology, Educational psychology , Learning, Psychology of , Memory
Journal or Publication Title:	Memory
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	0965-8211
Official Date:	4 May 2020
Dates:	Date Event 4 May 2020 Available 15 April 2020 Accepted
Date of first compliant deposit:	11 May 2020
DOI:	10.1080/09658211.2020.1758726
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	In Press
Publisher Statement:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Memory on 04 May 2020, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09658211.2020.1758726
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access

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