Sans Forgetica: a font that allows you to memorize what you read
Nowadays a huge stream of information passes through a single person every day. Nobody is able to remember everything, but still if the memory is good, and the brain works well, then something in the head still remains. But this is something, often less than the amount of information that people would like to remember. In pursuit of improved brain function, many of us are ready for almost everything, including the use of nootropics.
In 2011, the Fields of Darkness film appeared on the cinema screens, partly reflecting the cherished dream of many - to improve your memory and speed up the thought process. Recently, scientists from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology announced the creation of ... no, not a tablet, but a font that can improve the "digestibility" of the read text.
Immediately it should be said that the improvement is insignificant, it does not reach even ten percent. But in some situations this is also excellent, since a person will be able to memorize more, even if during the preparation for the coming exams.
The font was developed together with typographic design experts, psychologists and experts from other fields. Cooperation was necessary in order to combine various industries in the process of work, obtaining synthesized knowledge and experience. Scientists have called their joint work "cross-pollination of thinking processes."
According to the authors of the project, they decided to develop a font that is not like any other, but is completely different from everything that has been created at the moment. Initially, it was only an assumption, which was decided to implement.
The head of the work said that the entire project team sincerely believed that for the first time they managed to combine the principles of design and knowledge of the characteristics of the human brain. The font turned out to be somewhat difficult for perception, but in moderation, this is necessary so that the person who reads the text typed in such a font focuses and concentrates on the read. It is the complexity of the perception of the font "at first glance" and serves as an incentive for improving the memorization of the read.
The font, ironically called Sans Forgetica, as if forces the eye to "catch" with individual letters and words. The brain “draws” the forms of characters, as a result of which the reading speed slows down, but memorization of the read improves. According to the creators of the font, the analysis of each letter takes only a split second longer than in a normal situation.
It becomes not so easy for a person to be distracted, because he examines everything that is written, paying maximum attention to this process. In the usual situation, for example, when a person reads plain text typed in a familiar font, the look sometimes just slides along the lines without stopping anywhere. This is especially noticeable when a person is fascinated or upset about something.
The outlines and features of the letters of the new font have several features that cause the intensification of the reader's attention. Features force readers to dwell on each word in more detail, giving the brain more time for the procedure of cognitive processing, which improves memorization.
After creating the font, tests were conducted with volunteers - about 400 university students. They participated in the experiment both online, online and offline. As it turned out, readers did not feel too much inconvenience, but what they read was really better remembered. Scientists say that volunteers (of course, they were divided into control and test groups), who read texts typed with Sans Forgetica, memorized about 7% more reads than those readers who passed through the text in regular font (Arial other).
Of course, this cannot be called a breakthrough, but sometimes tenths of a percent play a role, and here we are talking about 7%. The font is free, you can download it as a font and as an extension for Chrome here.. The final version of it was created after two not very successful attempts. And the total duration of the Sans Forgetica project was about six months.