Ian Leslie, in his interesting book "Curiosity", writes
about psychologist Daniel Berlyne who gave people geometrical shapes to look
at. The shapes differed in
complexity. He discovered that people
got bored quickly when they looked at simple shapes. They were more interested to look at complex
shapes. But when the shapes were
extremely complex, they lost interest again.
We tend to be less interested in subjects
about which we feel we know everything, as well as in subjects about which we
feel we don't know anything. We tend to
be more interested in things we know something about. The partial information we have fuels our
curiosity by creating in us an awareness of our ignorance and a desire to know
more.
This is why children who seem uncurious
sometimes just lack basic knowledge about the subject. Supplying them with this knowledge may ignite
their curiosity.
When
we make a little effort, we learn better. People solved puzzled
better when they were distracted by a series of digits read out loud throughout
the task, than without this distraction.
When people were requested to spell some of the letters in word pairs
they learned, they recalled the pairs better than when required to only
memorize the pairs without spelling. Making
learning more active and effortful by spelling improved the ability to remember
the information.
A subjective feeling that the material is
a bit difficult makes people process it better, deeper, more attentively and to
understand it better.
Apparently,
even changing the font can cause such an effect. In a study (the details of which are presented
below), one group of university students learned a text that was presented in a
readable font. Another student group learned
the same text in a less readable font, printed in gray. The students were then asked questions about
the text's content. Students who learned the text printed in the less
comfortable to read font did significantly better on the questions than
students who studied the readable text!
In another
study, with 222 high school students, the researchers selected pairs of classes
which were taught by the same teacher in the same level. The subjects taught were English, Physics, History
and Chemistry. In one class of each
pair, the researchers changed the font of the materials which were handed out
by the teachers to a less readable font.
In the other class of each pair the materials were untouched. Students who learned materials printed in
less readable font got significantly better grades than students who learned the
original materials!
The researchers
argue that the change in font made the material itself feel more difficult. This caused the students to work harder and to
learn it better.
Diemand-Yauman, C., et al. Fortune favors
the bold and the italicized : Effects of disfluency on educational
outcomes. Cognition (2010). http://198.65.234.49/Aktuell/11/01_14/cognition.pdf
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