Fortune favors the Bold (and the Italicized): Effects of disfluency on educational outcomes

Previous research has shown that disfluency - the subjective experience of difficulty associated with cognitive operations - leads to deeper processing. Two studies explore the extent to which this deeper processing engendered by disfluency interventions can lead to improved memory performance. Study 1 found that information in hard-to-read fonts was better remembered than easier to read information in a controlled laboratory setting. Study 2 extended this finding to high school classrooms. The results suggest that superficial changes to learning materials could yield significant improvements in educational outcomes. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.