Sans Forgetica is Not the “Font” of Knowledge: Disfluent Fonts are Not Always Desirable Difficulties

Abstract

Subsequent recall is improved if students try to recall target material during study (self-testing) versus simply re-reading it. This effect is consistent with the notion of “desirable difficulties.” If the learning experience involves difficulties that induce extra effort, then retention may be improved. Not all difficulties are desirable, however. Difficult-to-read ( disfluent) typefaces yield inconsistent results. A new disfluent font, Sans Forgetica, was developed and alleged to promote deeper processing and improve learning. Although it would be invaluable if changing the font could enhance learning, the few studies on Sans Forgetica have been inconsistent, and focused on short retention intervals (0–5 minutes). We investigated a 1-week interval to increase practical relevance and because some benefits only manifest after a delay. A testing-effect manipulation was also included. Students ( N = 120) learned two passages via different methods (study then re-study vs. study then self-test). Half the students saw the passages in Times New Roman and half in Sans Forgetica. Recall test scores were higher for passages learned via self-testing than restudying, but the effect of font and the interaction were nonsignificant. We suggest that disfluency increases the local (orthographic) processing effort on each word but slowed reading might impair relational processing across words. In contrast, testing and generation effect manipulations often engage relational processing (question: answer; cue: target)—yielding subsequent benefits on cued-recall tests. We elaborate this suggestion to reconcile conflicting results across studies.

Recognition of Studied Words in Perceptual Disfluent Sans Forgetica Font

“…There is indeed evidence that words with 20% scrambled letters benefited recognition [10]. Our reasoning could also explain the consistent null results found with reading passages ( [23,30] Experiment 3, [31][32][33])-SF only creates letter-level difficulty, once the word(s) are identified/read, SF does not interfere or support the memory for the ideas those words conveyed. This letter-level difficulty could also be why SF made non-contextual errors (i.e., typos) in passages from Cushing & Bodner [35] more difficult to detect.…”

“…To our knowledge, there have only been thirteen studies that investigated whether SF can be a desirable difficulty. These studies compare performance between SF and a fluent font, typically Arial, sometimes Times New Roman (e.g., [23]). SF seems to benefit recognition (greater sensitivity d') of studied words ( [24] Experiment 1-only when a test was not expected) but there are also mixed findings [25] and null results [26].…”

“…For longer text forms, the research findings have been more consistent. SF did not benefit memory for read information from passages ([30] Experiment 3-multiple-choice questions; [23] short-answer questions), recall of missing words in read passages over highlighted text ( [31] Experiment 2), comprehension of passages ([30] Experiment 4, [32,33]), or solution rates of Cognitive Reflection Test problems [34]. However, there is one identified case where SF can be detrimental-proofreading text for errors.…”

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

“…Studies examining how using a perceptually difficult-to-process typeface with an increased desirable difficulty designed specifically to reduce legibility, such as Sans Forgetica, found either no processing or memory benefit of such typefaces or even yielded a memory cost (Geller et al, 2020;Taylor et al, 2020;Wetzler et al, 2021;Cushing and Bodner, 2022;Maxwell et al, 2022). However, there is also a whole series of studies which showed that poorer fluency of the text or desired difficulty in the fluency of the text resulted in better processing of the text and consequently in better memorisation of the read content (Diemand-Yauman et al, 2011;Macdonald and Lavic, 2011;Bjork et al, 2013;Halin, 2016;Pieger et al, 2016).…”

Using Occluded Text as a Cue Attracting Visual Attention and Preference in Packaging and Advertising

“…Hagtvedt (2011) suggested that companies try to deliberately create an innovative image in order to attract consumers’ attention to their advertisements even though the incomplete text used in these advertisements may decrease their consumers’ trust. In addition, Wetzler et al (2021) introduced the following hypothesis: if the learning experience involves difficulties that induce extra effort, then retention may be improved. With the aim to enhance learning, a new disfluent typeface, Sans Forgetica, was developed and alleged to promote deeper processing and improve learning.…”