E-readers 'too easy' to read

It has long been assumed that displaying information more clearly and legibly will help readers take it on board, but the truth could be the opposite – that making something easy to read causes the brain to be lazy.

Rather than making things clearer, e-readers and computers prevent us from absorbing information because their crisp screens and fonts tell our subconscious that the words they convey are not important, it is claimed.

In contrast, handwriting and fonts that are more challenging to read signal to the brain that the content of the message is important and worth remembering, experts say.

Neuroscience blogger Jonah Lehrer found he was less likely to recall information he had read on his Kindle e-reader, even though the reading experience was easier and more relaxing.

He wrote on his Frontal Cortex blog that there are two ways of reading – using the brain's ventral pathway, through which the brain recognises words and understands their individual meanings, or the dorsal stream, which activates itself when we have to focus on an obscure word, awkward clause or illegible writing.

Mr Lehrer said: "Familiar sentences printed in Helvetica and rendered on lucid e-ink screens are read quickly and effortlessly.

"Meanwhile, unusual sentences with complex clauses and smudged ink tend to require more conscious effort, which leads to more activation in the dorsal pathway. All the extra work – the slight cognitive frisson of having to decipher the words – wakes us up."

Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, he added that readers process very legible fonts "in a mindless way" while they have to work harder to decipher handwriting or more unusual fonts, signalling to the brain that the words are worth remembering.

He said: "It often takes a lot of work to decipher someone’s handwriting and maybe that’s why we remember handwritten notes a lot better than emails."

A study funded by Princeton University, published in the Cognition journal, found that people are better at retaining information written in a less fluent font.

Researchers asked 28 participants aged 18 to 40 to learn a set of facts about three fictional species of alien, which were written in different fonts.

Those who read the facts in the easy-to-read Arial pure black font retained 14 per cent less information than those who were given text written in the less clear Comic Sans MS and Bodoni MT.

The scientists wrote that "making material harder to learn can improve long-term learning and retention. More cognitive engagement leads to deeper processing", enabling the reader to recall the information more accurately.