Sans Forgetica: new typeface designed to help students study

A new font can help lodge information deeper in your brain, researchers say, but it’s not magic — just the science of effort.

Psychology and design researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne created a font called Sans Forgetica, which was designed to boost information retention for readers. It’s based on a theory called “desirable difficulty,” which suggests that people remember things better when their brains have to overcome minor obstacles while processing information. Sans Forgetica is sleek and back-slanted with intermittent gaps in each letter, which serve as a “simple puzzle” for the reader, according to Stephen Banham, a designer and RMIT lecturer who helped create the font.

“It should be difficult to read but not too difficult,” Banham said. “In demanding this additional act, memory is more likely to be triggered.”

Read the complete article from RMIT University here: Sans Forgetica: new typeface designed to help students study

You can view an RMIT's interactive website about the font here: Sans Forgetica

Score! Video gamers may learn visual tasks more quickly

Video games not only sharpen the visual processing skills of frequent players, they might also improve the brain’s ability to learn those skills, according to a new study. Gamers showed faster consolidation of learning when moving from one visual task to the next than did non-gamers.

Read the complete article from Brown University here: Score! Video gamers may learn visual tasks more quickly

The full text journal article from PLOS ONE can be found here: Frequent Video Game Players Resist Perceptual Interference

Playing for Words: Children with dyslexia have an easier time learning to read after playing action video games that don’t incorporate reading

Shooting silly-looking rabbits with a plunger gun in a video game called Rayman Raving Rabbids can improve the reading ability of dyslexic children, according to a new study publishing in the March 18 issue of Current Biology—despite the fact that the game contained no reading or linguistic components. The counterintuitive finding supports the idea that dyslexia is not only a disorder of linguistic centers of the brain, but may also involve areas that govern attention and motor skills.

Read the complete article from The Scientist (and find a link to the full text journal article) here: Playing for Words

Athletes Are Champion Visual Learners

Elite athletes are not just stronger, faster or more agile than their peers; their visual learning skills are also a cut above. Jocelyn Faubert from the University of Montreal found that professional football, ice hockey, and rugby players were significantly better than amateurs or non-athletes at processing a fast-moving, complicated scene. And as the three groups practiced, the pros widened their advantage even further.

Read the complete article from The Scientist here:  Athletes Are Champion Visual Learners