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Thursday, June 2, 2011

Study suggests 'hard to read' fonts may increase reading retention

Psychology & Psychiatry
Study suggests 'hard to read' fonts may increase reading retention

(Medical Xpress) -- Researchers from Indiana University and Princeton, in a paper published in Cognition, describe two experiments they conducted that appear to show reading retention improves when fonts that are considered harder to read are used.

In the study, as described by lead author, Connor Diemand-Yauman in an interview with ABC Radio National, a first group of volunteers, comprised of 28 adults, were asked to read some fictional text and then were asked questions about the characters involved afterwards. The volunteers were divided into three groups, with each being given the same text but printed in a different font; the first got 16-point Arial, the second 12-point Comic Sans MS and the third 12-point Bodoni MT. The group that had the so-called hard to read Comic Sans outperformed the other two on the questions given afterwards.

In the second study, the volunteers were high school students (over 220 of them, from six separate groups) reading normal course material in different fonts; some of which were considered hard to read, such as Comic Sans or Monotype Corsiva. Once again, those that were reading the material printed in the more difficult to read fonts outperformed those reading easier type on tests given afterwards.

Diemand-Yauman says these experiments show that people tend to remember what they’ve read better if the material given is in a hard to read font.

What’s not discussed in the paper, however, is if it was possible that the results achieved were due simply to the newness of the fonts to the readers, thus heightening their awareness, or what criteria was chosen in deciding which fonts should be considered as “hard to read.” Many fans of Comic Sans, for example might argue that it’s actually easier to read than say Arial, or Callibri, both of which are considered easy to read by most in the mainstream.

Also, if what the study suggests is true, might it be possible to integrate such fonts as Comic Sans into textbooks, or journals (or on the web) to help improve retention, and hopefully overall learning, or would such hard to read fonts cause excessive eyestrain and headaches?

In either case, it’s clear that this research has opened the door to a new area of learning science that will no-doubt lead to more studies which will hopefully clear up such questions and in the end provide us all with the best font for whatever we might be reading.

More information: Fortune favors the bold (and the Italicized): Effects of disfluency on educational outcomes, Cognition, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2010.09.012

Abstract
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.

"Study suggests 'hard to read' fonts may increase reading retention." June 1st, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-hard-fonts-retention.html

Comment:
The 'hard to read' status quickly evaporates as one habituates to it, so novelty is the key. Compare Medieval fonts (eg Gothic), for instance, which is only just legible to the uninitiated but can be read fluently by those familiar with it.

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

New study locates the source of key brain function

Neuroscience

Scientists at the University of Southern California have pinned down the region of the brain responsible for a key survival trait: our ability to comprehend a scene—even one never previously encountered—in a fraction of a second.

The key is to process the interacting objects that comprise a scene more quickly than unrelated objects, according to corresponding author Irving Biederman, professor of psychology and computer science in the USC Dornsife College and the Harold W. Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience.

The study appears in the June 1 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

The brain's ability to understand a whole scene on the fly "gives us an enormous edge on an organism that would have to look at objects one by one and slowly add them up," Biederman said. What's more, the interaction of objects in a scene actually allows the brain to identify those objects faster than if they were not interacting.

While previous research had already established the existence of this "scene-facilitation effect," the location of the part of the brain responsible for the effect remained a mystery. That's what Biederman and lead author Jiye G. Kim, a graduate doctoral student in Biederman's lab, set out to uncover with Chi-Hung Juan of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at the National Central University in Taiwan.

"The 'where' in the brain gives us clues as to the 'how,'" Biederman said. This study is the latest in an ongoing effort by Biederman and Kim to unlock the complex way in which the brain processes visual experience. The goal, as Biederman puts it, is to understand "how we get mind from brain."

To find out the "where" of the scene-facilitation effect, the researchers flashed drawings of pairs of objects for just 1/20 of a second. Some of these objects were depicted as interacting, such as a hand grasping for a pen, and some were not, with the hand reaching away from the pen. The test subjects were asked to press a button if a label on the screen matched either one of the two objects, which it did on half of the presentations.

A recent study by Kim and Biederman suggested that the source of the scene-facilitation effect was the lateral occipital cortex, or LO, which is a portion of the brain's visual processing center located between the ear and the back of the skull. However, the possibility existed that the LO was receiving help from the intraparietal sulcus, or IPS, which is a groove in the brain closer to the top of the head.

The IPS is engaged with implementing visual attention, and the fact that interacting objects may attract more attention left open the possibility that perhaps it was providing the LO with assistance.

While participants took the test, electromagnetic currents were used to alternately zap subjects' LO or IPS, temporarily numbing each region in turn and preventing it from providing assistance with the task.

All of the participants were pre-screened to ensure they could safely receive the treatment, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which produces minimal discomfort.

By measuring how accurate participants were in detecting objects shown as interacting or not interacting when either the LO or IPS were zapped, researchers could see how much help that part of the brain was providing. The results were clear: zapping the LO eliminated the scene-facilitation effect. Zapping the IPS, however, did nothing.

When it comes to providing a competitive edge in identifying objects that are part of an interaction, the lateral occipital cortex appears to be working alone. Or, at least, without help from the intraparietal sulcus.

Provided by University of Southern California

"New study locates the source of key brain function." June 1st, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-source-key-brain-function.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Researchers map, measure brain's neural connections

Researchers map, measure the brain's neural connections

Neuroscience

Researchers at Brown University have created a computer program to advance the analysis of the neural connections in the human brain. The program's special features include a linked view for users to view both the 3-D image (top) and 2-D closeups of the neural bundles. Credit: Radu Jianu, Brown University

Medical imaging systems allow neurologists to summon 3-D colour renditions of the brain at a moment's notice, yielding valuable insights. But sometimes there can be too much detail; important elements can go unnoticed.

The bundles of individual nerves that transmit information from one part of the brain to the other, like fibre-optic cables, are so intricate and so interwoven that they can be difficult to trace through standard imaging techniques. To help, computer science researchers at Brown University have produced 2-D maps of the neural circuitry in the human brain.

The goal is simplicity. The planar maps extract the neural bundles from the imaging data and present them in 2-D – a format familiar to medical professionals working with brain models. The Brown researchers also provide a web interface by integrating the neural maps into a geographical digital maps framework that professionals can use seamlessly to explore the data.

"In short, we have developed a new way to make 2-D diagrams that illustrate 3-D connectivity in human brains," said David Laidlaw, professor of computer science at Brown and corresponding author on the paper published in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. "You can see everything here that you can't really see with the bigger (3-D) images."

The 2-D neural maps are simplified representations of neural pathways in the brain. These representations are created using a medical imaging protocol that measures the water diffusion within and around the nerves of the brain. The sheathing is composed of myelin, a fatty membrane that wraps around axons, the threadlike extensions of neurons that make up nerve fibres.

Medical investigators can use the 2-D neural maps to pinpoint spots where the myelin may be compromised, which could affect the vitality of the neural circuits. That can help identify pathologies, such as autism, that brain scientists increasingly believe manifest themselves in myelinated axons. Diseases associated with the loss of myelin affect more than 2 million people worldwide, according to the Myelin Project, an organization dedicated to advancing myelin-related research.

Researchers can use the 2-D neural maps to help identify whether the structure or the size of neural bundles differs among individuals and how any differences may relate to performance, skills or other traits. "It's an anatomical measure," Laidlaw said. "It's a tool that we hope will help the field."

While zeroing in on the brain's wiring, the team, including graduate students Radu Jianu and Çağatay Demiralp, added a "linked view" so users can toggle back and forth between the neural bundles in the 2-D image and the larger 3-D picture of the brain.

"What you see is what you operate," said Jianu, the paper's lead author. "There's no change in perspective with what you're working with on the screen."

Users can export the 2-D brain representations as images and display them in Web browsers using Google Maps. "The advantage of using this mode of distribution is that users don't have to download a large dataset, put it in the right format, and then use a complicated software to try and look at it, but can simply load a webpage," Jianu explained.

The program is designed to share research. Scientists can use the Web to review brain research in other labs that may be useful to their own work.

Provided by Brown University

"Researchers map, measure brain's neural connections." June 1st, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-brain-neural.html

Posted by

Robert Karl Stonjek

Want to solve a problem? Don't just use your brain, but your body too

Psychology & Psychiatry

When we’ve got a problem to solve, we don’t just use our brains but the rest of our bodies, too. The connection, as neurologists know, is not uni-directional. Now there’s evidence from cognitive psychology of the same fact. “Being able to use your body in problem solving alters the way you solve the problems,” says University of Wisconsin psychology professor Martha Alibali. “Body movements are one of the resources we bring to cognitive processes.”

These conclusions, of a new study by Alibali and colleagues—Robert C. Spencer, also at the University of Wisconsin, and Lucy Knox and Sotaro Kita of the University of Birmingham—are augmented by another, counter-intuitive one – even when we are solving problems that have to do with motion and space, the inability to use the body may force us to come up with other strategies, and these may be more efficient.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The study involved two experiments. The first recruited 86 American undergraduates, half of whom were prevented from moving their hands using Velcro gloves that attached to a board. The others were prevented from moving their feet, using Velcro straps attached to another board. The latter thus experienced the strangeness of being restricted, but also had their hands free. From the other side of an opaque screen, the experimenter asked questions about gears in relation to each other—e.g., “If five gears are arranged in a line, and you move the first gear clockwise, what will the final gear do?” The participants solved the problems aloud and were videotaped.

The videotapes were then analyzed for the number of hand gestures the participants used (hand rotations or “ticking” movements, indicating counting); verbal explanations indicating the subject was visualizing those physical movements; or the use of more abstract mathematical rules, without reference to perceptual-motor processes.

The results: The people who were allowed to gesture usually did so—and they also commonly used perceptual-motor strategies in solving the puzzles. The people whose hands were restrained, as well as those who chose not to gesture (even when allowed), used abstract, mathematical strategies much more often.

In a second experiment, 111 British adults did the same thing silently and were videotaped, and described their strategies afterwards. The results were the same.

The findings evince deeper questions about the relationship of mind and body and their relationship to space, says Alibali. “As human thinkers, we use visual-spatial metaphors all the time to solve problems and conceptualize things—even in domains that don’t seem physical on their face. Adding is ‘up,’ subtracting is ‘down.’ A good mood is ‘high,’ a bad one is ‘low.’ This is the metaphoric structuring of our conceptual landscape.”

Alibali, who is also an educational psychologist, asks: “How we can harness the power of action and perception in learning?” Or, conversely: What about the cognitive strategies of people who cannot use their bodies? “They may focus on different aspects of problems,” she says. And, it turns out, they may be onto something the rest of us could learn from.

More information: "Spontaneous Gestures Influence Strategy Choices in Problem Solving", Psychological Science.

Provided by Association for Psychological Science

"Want to solve a problem? Don't just use your brain, but your body too." June 1st, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-problem-dont-brain-body.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Steady relationships reduce amphetamine's rewarding effects

Neuroscience

Long-term relationships make the commonly abused drug amphetamine less appealing, according to a new animal study in the June 1 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest that social bonds formed during adulthood lead to changes in the brain that may protect against drug abuse.

Prairie voles are rodents that form lifelong bonds with mating partners. In the new study, researchers directed by Zuoxin Wang, PhD, of Florida State University, found that male voles in established relationships displayed less interest in amphetamine compared with their single counterparts. Amphetamine exposure led to changes in the nucleus accumbens — a part of the brain's reward system — that differed depending on the relationship status of the voles.

Wang and his colleagues found brain cells of both paired and single voles released a similar amount of dopamine — a brain chemical important in pleasurable activities like eating and sex — in response to amphetamine. However, this released dopamine may have had differential effects in paired and single voles. Once released, dopamine binds to molecules called receptors on the surface of brain cells. Amphetamine use increased D1 receptor binding in the nucleus accumbens in single voles, but decreased it in paired voles, suggesting the single and paired voles had opposite responses to the drug.

Drugs that blocked dopamine from binding to the D1 receptor in the nucleus accumbens lessened amphetamine reward in single voles, while drugs that increased dopamine binding at this site appeared to make amphetamine more appealing to the paired voles.

"Our results indicate that the pair bonding experience may alter the neurobiological response to drugs of abuse, which in turn may diminish the rewarding effects of the drug itself," study author Wang said.

Earlier work in Wang's laboratory showed single voles sought out the rewarding effects of amphetamine and that repeated exposure to the drug threw off their drive to form lifelong partnerships. In the current study, the researchers explored whether relationships formed during adulthood could buffer against amphetamine's rewarding properties.

"While this study is very interesting, it will be important to determine whether pair-bonded voles would be less likely to work for drugs of abuse if given unlimited access," said Larry Young, PhD, an expert in social behavior at Emory University, who was unaffiliated with the study. "Understanding the neurobiology of how social bonds protect against the rewarding aspects of drug abuse may ultimately inform novel therapies for addiction."

Provided by Society for Neuroscience

"Steady relationships reduce amphetamine's rewarding effects." June 1st, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-steady-relationships-amphetamine-rewarding-effects.html

Comment:On the other hand, the effect of amphetamine may mimic some of the feelings associated with being in a relationship. Stimulants generally produce a warm 'loving' feeling or its opposite, hate, anger and aggression. If it is the feeling that is the causative agent then we'd expect that any of the feelings evoked by the amphetamine that are naturally occurring higher without the drug would ameliorate its attractiveness eg being in a situation that stimulates loving feelings or aggression...

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek