Do not recommend applying perceptual disfluency to study materials absent convincing evidence of a (moderated) effect¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (5 for) · 3 studies (2 causal, 1 review), q2 · 0 of 3 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article draws a practical consequence from the pattern of replication failures: if neither moderated nor universal disfluency effects can be reliably found, "The practical consequence is to not recommend the use of disfluency." The authors frame the decision rule as: reliably replicating interactions or main effects would question the effect's nonexistence, whereas failure to find convincing evidence for any disfluency effect reinforces that the effect is fickle. Given their null replication with doubled sample size and higher power, they conclude the disfluency manipulation should not be recommended for learning materials.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• A decision about applying disfluent fonts should rest on reliably replicated main or interaction effects rather than single underpowered studies

Constraints¶

• The recommendation follows from this replication and the inconsistent literature; the article notes some studies did find positive disfluency effects (e.g., Weltman & Eakin, 2014)

Target Learners¶

• educational settings considering harder-to-read fonts in text-based learning materials

Target Learning Goals¶

• retention, comprehension, and transfer of expository text material

Claims¶

• In a pre-registered direct replication (N = 96), the disfluency × WMC interaction did not significantly predict retention, failing to replicate Lehmann et al. (2016) [+W]
• The learning benefits of perceptual disfluency reported by Diemand-Yauman et al. (2011) do not replicate in any general way [+M]
• Neither disfluency nor distinctiveness affected memory across three experiments with alien-list stimuli [+W]
• GCL-raising activations did not improve learning outcomes: neither prompted imagination nor disfluency produced a significant task-performance advantage [+W]
• Across the four existing experiments on WMC moderation of disfluency, results are inconsistent: one finds the effect restricted to high-span, one to low-span, and two find null moderation [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Shift disfluency research and interventions from perceptual difficulties to generative difficulties that require learners to generate information
• Test whether disfluency aids learning when key words are hard to read in isolation but readable given surrounding semantic context

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Sophia C. Weissgerber, Denia Indah Permatasari Terhorst, Ralf Rummer. (2024). Is the perceptual disfluency effect moderated by working memory capacity? Direct replication of Lehmann et al. (2016). Metacognition and Learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-023-09366-7