41–50 of 180 posts
The mediating factor for these studies is going to be reading time. Similarly I would presume reading a mathematics text out of order will also boost recall on a test.
I tweeted about this yesterday, from the article: > "Students remembered 57 per cent ... written in Sans Forgetica, compared to 50 per cent .... in Ariel" 7% delta retention isn't so much, is it?
Hey, it's based on "the principles of cognitive psychology", a field that's renown for its accuracy and reproducibility.
The basic idea has to do with a concept called processing fluency. Studies have shown that the harder your brain has to work to process the information, the more likely you are to absorb it -- at least to a point. One recent study that manipulated processing fluency using a hard-to-read font is "Fluency and the detection of misleading questions: Low processing fluency attenuates the Moses illusion," Social Cognition,…
> Sans Forgetica is more difficult to read than most typefaces – and that’s by design. The 'desirable difficulty' you experience when reading information formatted in Sans Forgetica prompts your brain to engage in deeper processing. But does the effectiveness of this hold up over time or will your brain get accustomed to the font after a while such that reading it eventually becomes no different than reading whatever…
I would posit that this might be true if everything was in sans forgetica, but since only your notes should be in that font, then it will likely retain it's utility over time.
Is the goal that you type these notes in SF and hope the font trains you to remember? There was a scene in the video where someone just "switched" the notes to SF en-masse... seems like that'd be not so useful.
I see no cited papers here, just the claim, in the video, that "over 100 students" were used in testing to pick this font from several candidates.
I'm doubtful of any long-term value here. Even if "desirable difficulty" mechanism is real, I'd expect different readers to need wildly different levels of interference, and for their perceptions to adapt quickly to consistent letterforms. (So, to really get the benefit, you'd have an adjustable and dynamic level of perceptual-interference.)
I'd like to see more research here and see where it can be used and how it can be used.
I've been working on an integrated offline browser for documents and annotation named Polar:
which is mostly designed around annotation and spaced repetition.
You can store all your documents and web content in one place and since you're obviously trying to read and retain all that information it might be interesting to enable this as a one-off feature to see if it helps.
Another idea could be to just have them for the flashcards since this is the key information you're trying to retain.
Wow, they have their own TLD! https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/rmit.html Interesting that the university's website is not on that TLD but rather https://rmit.edu.au
1. read essay 4 times
2. read and take notes, study notes
3. read once, then have to write out (a few times) what can be recalled on a blank piece of paper
The groups were from most to least confident in their learning but the actual success on a test for concepts (which requires recall) was opposite.
So, better than using a weird font to push encoding of memory is to plan for and then do recall practice. Like tell other people about what you learned or test yourself on it.
You get good at whatever you practice. If you reread something over and over, you don't get better at recalling the ideas, but you do get better at reading the thing. I bet the first group above would do better than the others at giving a live reading of the essay.
The basic idea has to do with a concept called processing fluency. Studies have shown that the harder your brain has to work to process the information, the more likely you are to absorb it -- at least to a point. One recent study that manipulated processing fluency using a hard-to-read font is "Fluency and the detection of misleading questions: Low processing fluency attenuates the Moses illusion," Social Cognition,…
When I was studying from notes or a book in Spanish (my native language), I would review in English. Actually, my review consisted in presenting the contents to an invisible audience in English (yes, I've never been able to study in libraries or other places where you need to remain silent, most of my time studying consists in standing and talking...)
Conversely, when I studied from material in English, I would review it in Spanish, also by presenting to an invisible audience.
I always found this to be very effective (even before learning about the cognitive science concept you point out). Of course, it's just anecdotal evidence with sample size of 1. But it's a fun way to study anyway, it also lets you practice a foreign language, and you're more likely to not get bored and set "autopilot" on (maybe this was also a big factor why it worked for me...)