Whenever you read text, you don't pay much attention to the way the information is presented — particularly the font (字体) choice. That's because your main objective is reading comprehension.
Although printing design is overlooked by most of us, it's crucial in making texts clear, readable and appealing for audiences. Beyond the visual aspect, research shows that fonts play a significant role in the cognitive (认知的) processes while we read. A font's impact on the way you learn and keep information might be hard to notice consciously, but your brain is certainly tuned in. Perhaps surprisingly, hard-to-read fonts such as Bodoni or Comic Sansor are better for preserving information than fonts like Arial or Times New Roman. Participants recalled more information from the material they read when it was presented in a font that was difficult to read, according to a 2010 study.
"Difficulty can function as an alarm signal, giving the reader a sense that the task is challenging and will require mental effort," says Daniel Oppenheimer, a professor of Social and Decision Science. "Additionally, slowing down the reading speed to deal with the dis-fluency may help readers spot errors in a text. Hard-to-read fonts, which make it harder to engage with a material but don't actually draw away the reader, therefore generate "desirable difficulty"— and the resulting cognitive trouble may improve performance because they require more mental effort."
Font characteristics such as style, size and color play a role in information retention or recall, as well, because font design is vital to our familiarity — or unfamiliarity — with a given word, says Stephen Banham, a typography lecturer. Experiments have demonstrated a relationship between font size and memory: large font items may predict higher recall regardless of style, but very small font sizes can also introduce a desirable difficulty.
A document's specific method of formatting information also makes an impact. Using font styles like bold or italics to indicate significance can also improve information possession. That's because people are better able to remember information they consider important. Researchers found that bolded text has a higher recall than text in italic or regular styles, regardless of the font size. However, if an entire document is bolded, the emphasis is lost, and readers can no longer spot vital passages.
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