Would disfluency by any other name still be disfluent? Examining the disfluency effect with cursive handwriting

Abstract

When exposed to words presented under perceptually disfluent conditions (e.g., words written in Haettenschweiler font), participants have difficulty initially recognizing the words. Those same words, though, may be better remembered later than words presented in standard type font. This counterintuitive finding is referred to as the disfluency effect. Evidence for this disfluency effect, however, has been mixed, suggesting possible moderating factors. Using a recognition memory task, level of disfluency was examined as a moderating factor across three experiments using a novel cursive manipulation that varied on degree of legibility (easy-to-read cursive vs. hard-to-read cursive). In addition, list type and retention interval between study and test were manipulated. Across all three experiments, cursive words engendered better memory than type-print words. This memory effect persisted across varied list designs (blocked vs. mixed) and a longer (24-hour) retention interval. A small-scale meta-analysis across the three experiments suggested that the cursive disfluency effect is moderated by level of disfluency: easy-to-read cursive words tended to be better remembered than hard-to-read cursive words. Taken together, these results challenge extant accounts of the disfluency effect. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Is a picture really worth a thousand words? Evaluating contributions of fluency and analytic processing in metacognitive judgements for pictures in foreign language vocabulary learning

“…Things that make something appear easier to learn often have the effect of increasing confidence in learning, without increasing actual learning (for reviews, see Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009; Finn & Tauber, 2015; Reber & Greifeneder, 2017; Unkelbach & Greifeneder, 2013). This “metacognitive illusion” (Rhodes & Castel, 2009) has been shown for visual stimuli that are presented in larger font compared with smaller font (Kornell, Rhodes, Castel, & Tauber, 2011; Rhodes & Castel, 2008), in clearer font compared with blurred font (Yue, Castel, & Bjork, 2013), or in type-print font compared with handwritten cursive (Geller, Still, Dark, & Carpenter, 2018). In other domains, overconfidence is greater for auditory stimuli that are presented in louder compared with softer volume (Rhodes & Castel, 2009), and for lectures that are delivered in a manner that is smooth and well-polished compared with fumbling and awkward (Carpenter, Mickes, Rahman, & Fernandez, 2016; Carpenter, Northern, Tauber, & Toftness, 2019; Carpenter, Wilford, Kornell, & Mullaney, 2013; Toftness et al, 2018).…”

A Review of the Cognitive Effects of Disfluent Typography on Functional Reading

“…One very interesting point this study raises is that it suggests there may be a threshold at which point novelty or visual complexity ceases to be beneficial to memory. In Geller et al's experiment, readers tended to remember words better when they were presented in an easy compared to hard to read handwritten variation (Geller et al 2018) suggesting the possibility of a perceptual disfluent effect that is strongest using only mildly difficult to read typefaces.…”

“…Further, and suggesting there are still gaps, a meta-analysis of disfluency studies revealed no effect of perceptual disfluency on recall, but did show that the use of difficult to read typefaces does impact an individual's judgements of the time and effort needed to adequately memorize content (Xie, Zhou, and Liu 2018), as well as increasing the actual time needed to learn information (Eitel and K€ uhl 2016;Sanchez and Jaeger 2015). One exception to this trend, and with a thorough methodology, is the work by Geller et al (2018), who found an effect on memory in favour of handwritten scripts compared to the font Courier 4 . One very interesting point this study raises is that it suggests there may be a threshold at which point novelty or visual complexity ceases to be beneficial to memory.…”

GazeR: A Package for Processing Gaze Position and Pupil Size Data

“…of printed and cursive stimuli while pupil diameter was recorded. Because cursive stimuli are non-segmented and could be ambiguous, it was predicted that recognizing cursive stimuli would require more effort than printed words would (cf., Barnhart & Goldinger, 2010;Geller, Still, Dark, & Carpenter, 2018), resulting in larger pupil dilation.…”