How font size affects judgments of learning: Simultaneous mediating effect of item-specific beliefs about fluency and moderating effect of beliefs about font size and memory

Ningxin Su; Tongtong Li; Jun Zheng; Xiao Hu; Tian Fan; Liang Luo

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0200888

How font size affects judgments of learning: Simultaneous mediating effect of item-specific beliefs about fluency and moderating effect of beliefs about font size and memory

PLoS One. 2018 Jul 20;13(7):e0200888. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200888. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Ningxin Su^{1

2}, Tongtong Li³, Jun Zheng^{1

2}, Xiao Hu^{1

2}, Tian Fan¹, Liang Luo^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
³ Mental Health Education and Counseling Center, Hefei University of Technology, HeFei, China.
⁴ Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Numerous studies have provided experience-based or theory-based frameworks for the basis of judgment of learning (JOL). However, few studies have directly measured processing experience and beliefs related to the same cue in one experiment and examined their joint contribution to JOLs. The present study focused on font-size effects and aimed to examine the simultaneous contribution of processing fluency and beliefs to the effect of font size on JOLs. We directly measured processing fluency via self-paced study time. We also directly measured participants' beliefs via two approaches: pre-study global differentiated predictions (GPREDs) as an indicator of preexisting beliefs about font size and memory and ease of learning judgments (EORs) as online generated item-specific beliefs about fluency. In Experiment 1, EORs partially mediated the font-size effect, whereas self-paced study time did not. In Experiments 2a and 2b, EORs mediated the font-size effect; at the same time, beliefs about font size and memory moderated the font-size effect. In summary, the present study demonstrates a major role of beliefs underlying the font-size effect.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Culture*
Humans
Judgment / physiology*
Memory*
Mental Recall
Metacognition
Writing

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 31671130], http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/, and Major Projects of National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 16ZDA229], http://www.npopss-cn.gov.cn/. Liang Luo is the funding recipient for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.