Switching between fluent and disfluent fonts improves young learners’ estimation of memory effectiveness but not memory itself

Educational Psychology. 2026. Vol. 46. No. 7. P. 973–992.

Elina Tsigeman, Likhanov M., Elena Gorbunova, Kovas Y.

Research suggests hard-to-read fonts may improve information retention in adults, but this has rarely been tested in children. This experiment investigated the effect of font disfluency (fluent, disfluent, or mixed) on text retention and metacognitive judgments in 202 young learners (Mage = 10.13 years). Participants read a text, completed immediate and delayed recall tests, and provided performance judgments. Potential moderators (retention interval, encoding condition, age, verbal memory, and test anxiety) were examined. Results showed no positive disfluency effect; recall was poorer for disfluent text. However, the mixed-font condition led to more accurate judgments of performance. No significant moderating effects were found. These findings suggest that disfluent fonts do not benefit (and may impair) children’s memory, though mixing fonts may support metacognitive accuracy. The study concludes that applying disfluency principles in education is premature without further research into its mechanisms and moderators in young learners.

Keywords: learning, memory, disfluency effect, test expectancy, metacognitive judgements

Publication based on the results of: Analysis of Human Interaction with Information and Improvement of Algorithms of Information Processing (2025)