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New font Sans Forgetica designed to boost your memory
Posted: Sun 07 Oct 2018, 20:44
by Flash
New font Sans Forgetica designed to boost your memory
Helvetica is so 2011. It's all about Sans Forgetica now.
by
Jackson Ryan
October 3, 2018
...Researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia have developed an entirely new font designed "using the principles of cognitive psychology" to help you better remember your study notes. The font is a sans serif style typeface, with two unusual features: It slants slightly left, which is a rarely used design principle in typography, and it's full of holes.
Those holes have a purpose though. They make Sans Forgetica harder to read, tricking your brain into using "deeper cognitive processing" and promoting better memory retention. The psychological learning principle is known as "desirable difficulty" and that obstruction -- the holes -- mean you dwell on each word just a little bit longer.
The font was created in partnership with creative agency Naked and the RMIT School of Design and Behavioural Business Lab.
To find the best font for boosting memory, 400 students were exposed to several different fonts. Sans Forgetica showed the biggest leap in remembering.
"Sans Forgetica performed the best at aiding memory because it broke just enough of the design principles without becoming too illegible," says Dr. Jo Peryman, chair of the RMIT Behavioural Business Lab.
Although it was pioneered by RMIT to be used as a study tool, Dr. Janneke Blijlevens, founding member of the Behavioural Business Lab, believes the font's applications extend beyond classrooms and can help people memorize things important to them in their own lives.
Shopping lists, birthdays, important dates? Write it down in Sans Forgetica and you're tricking your brain into remembering it.
How well does it work? Come back to me in a few months' time.
You can download Sans Forgetica for free use on PC and Mac, or as a Chrome browser extension,
here.
So I downloaded the .zip file and unzipped it. Now I have what I believe is a TrueType file of about 100 kB. That seems a bit small for a type font, but I'm not that familiar with the things. Anyway, what do I do with it? Where in Puppy can I put it to try it out?
Posted: Sun 07 Oct 2018, 21:25
by ITSMERSH
Somewhere in /usr/share/fonts.
Mine (except a few of them) are in /usr/share/fonts/default/TTF.
And then just use mtpaint or abiword etc.
Posted: Sun 07 Oct 2018, 21:26
by musher0
Hi Flash.
Unzip in /usr/share/fonts/default/TTF. Then open a console and type
to "really" recreate the font cache (the "r" parameter stands for "really".
Really!
)
Then type
or open it through the usual menu.
Go to the bottom and click on the button "Font". From there, you highlight
your "Forget-me-not"
font in the left column, you choose its size and
appearance in the right column. You hit the Save button in this font panel,
then in the themes panel, and there you go, you have changed the general
font on your Pup.
If you prefer a limited approach, you can change a font per app, e.g.
Open|Libre|Office has a way of doing that in its config panels; same with
Geany.
To conclude:
It's none of my business, of course, if you like that font, you like that font,
but I mean: are you sure this memory-jogging font is not a hoax?!
There has been a slew of pull-your-leg social studies papers lately, including
if you mastur....e thinking about a woman without her knowing and consent,
it constitutes sexual agression nevertheless!?
I can't find the exact source article for the above ATM, but these will do:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... -180956426
https://www.economist.com/science-and-t ... er-regions
Anyway, as usual, "caveat emptor."
IHTH. BFN.
Posted: Sun 07 Oct 2018, 21:58
by mostly_lurking
It's an "OpenType" font, apparently (not sure if all programs can handle such fonts, but Abiword does, see screenshot). In my experience, just putting it somewhere into /usr/share/fonts is all that is needed to make it work.
To find the best font for boosting memory, 400 students were exposed to several different fonts. Sans Forgetica showed the biggest leap in remembering.
The psychological learning principle is known as "desirable difficulty" and that obstruction -- the holes -- mean you dwell on each word just a little bit longer.
Maybe my brain works differently... it pretty much just ignores the hard-to-read gibberish. Of course it takes longer to read, but I'm not sure I would memorize it better - I tend to remember written words together with the writing style, and if they are barely readable, my brain mostly refuses to process them, similar to text written in all caps in a huge font that's just "too much".
musher0 wrote:are you sure this memory-jogging font is not a hoax?!
Hoax or not, I don't know... but I have doubts about the font's actual usability, for the reasons I mentioned above, and for the simple fact that this font is an annoying eyestrain - even if it worked, the user would very likely switch back to something more readable before their eyes burn out.
The PDF document that comes with the font recommends it for highlighting important passages in a text, rather than using it exclusively; the screenshot below shows both uses.
Posted: Sun 07 Oct 2018, 22:15
by musher0
Hi gang.
Looks a bit this, don't you think?
Posted: Sun 07 Oct 2018, 22:30
by Flash
Thanks ITSMERSH and musher0 for your advice on how to use this font in Puppy. I don't think it's a hoax. The question is, will it do what its creators hope? It's worth playing around with.
I put the Sans Forgetica folder in /usr/share/fonts/truetype. Both Abiword and Geany use it. It makes me pay closer attention, that's for sure, which is bound to improve reading retention. I can see that it should only be used for important things, like the signs at the zoo entrance that tell you not to feed the lions.
Posted: Sun 07 Oct 2018, 23:24
by mikeslr
Thanks flash for bringing it to our attention and mostly_lurking for presenting an example. But I have to agree with musher0. As I tried to read the example I found that, seeing the 'forgetica-fonted' text as gibberish, I just skimmed over it. Perhaps if it were also bolded so that it couldn't be ignored the "desirable difficulty" would kick in.
Posted: Mon 08 Oct 2018, 14:52
by Flash
One thing I noticed is that this font seems to reduce ambiguity. An r followed by an n in some fonts, and I'm not pointing fingers here, looks enough like an m that the only way I'm sure it's not is the spelling of the word would be wrong. Sans Forgetica once and for all resolves that particular ambiguity and probably others as well.
I'm guessing that it wouldn't take long for the eye to get used to Sans Forgetica and then the memory boosting effect would be lost. That's why it should only be used sparingly.
Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2018, 18:18
by 8Geee
have to say Flash, that Liberation mono does very well here in 10 to 12 pt size. No ambiguity.
JMHO
8Geee
Posted: Thu 11 Oct 2018, 03:17
by tallboy
Just reading the text sample provided by mostly_lurking, boosted my memory! I cannot remember any other font that annoyed me so much!
Posted: Thu 11 Oct 2018, 07:57
by bigpup
There are things I try to forget!
Please let me do that!
You know, people that do research always need to come up with something, to justify giving them money.
Posted: Thu 11 Oct 2018, 21:39
by TyroBGinner
But can this new typeface be incorporated into TeX?
Come to think of it, why would anyone bother? It is often the case that using TeX with one's typeface of choice is an incomprehensible procedure. Imagine having to do that with text that is itself illegible.
TeX is still awesome, though.
Posted: Fri 12 Oct 2018, 02:03
by perdido
Sans Forgeta showing in my favorite puppy font viewer, Pfont2
I had forgotten about Pfont2 until I viewed Sans Forgetica
The
Pfont2 thread is buried, I will unbury it in my best Pelo fashion!
.
Posted: Sun 14 Oct 2018, 07:28
by TyroBGinner
No more Pelo!!!!!!!!