Disfluency benefits retention and comprehension only for learners with high working memory capacity¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · reviewr2·q3
Currency · newest study 2016 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Lehmann, Goussious, and Seufert found participants benefited from disfluency on retention and comprehension tests only if they had high working memory capacity. → Bjork 2016
Evidence¶
Bjork 2016¶
Bjork, R. A., & Yue, C. L. (2016). Commentary: Is disfluency desirable? Metacognition Learning, 11, 133–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-016-9156-8
q3 · i? · review · r2
Lehmann, Goussious, and Seufert had participants read a passage in fluent or disfluent font, measuring working memory capacity plus retention, comprehension, and transfer (as summarized in this commentary). Disfluency benefits emerged only for high-capacity learners.
"Participants did benefit from disfluency on the retention and comprehension tests, but only if they had high working memory capacity."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- All 13 special-issue studies failed to show overall better performance due to disfluency — related
- Working memory capacity predicts comprehension performance only in the disfluency condition, with higher WMC yielding better comprehension — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Working memory capacity predicts retention performance only in the disfluency condition, with higher WMC yielding better retention — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Working memory capacity moderated disfluency effects in one study but not another — a broader claim this one bears on
- In a pre-registered direct replication (N = 96), the disfluency × WMC interaction did not significantly predict retention, failing to replicate Lehmann et al. (2016) — reports the opposite
- The primary study (Lehmann et al., 2016) had only about 45% power to detect its observed interaction effect; roughly 150 participants would be needed for 80% power — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
disfluency-benefits-high-working-memory-only |
title |
Disfluency benefits retention and comprehension only for learners with high working memory capacity |
description |
Disfluency benefits retention and comprehension only for learners with high working memory capacity |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2016 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-19 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — bjork-2016 |
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