An Experimental Study of Typographic Cueing in Printed Text

Abstract

Typographic cueing refers to the use of variations in the appearance of text in order to provide a visual distinction between different levels of text content. An experiment is reported in which three cueing conditions were compared. One format used capitals for the cued material, a second used bold setting, and the third was a control condition. In an attempt to determine the influence of providing a pre-test on the outcome of cueing experiments, three pre-testing conditions were provided: pre-test of cued information, of noncued information, no pro-test. Subjects read a passage for 3 min, and were then given separate tests of cued and noncued information. The results of the test of cued information are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that cueing yields higher scores if a pre-test of cued information or no pre-test has been administered. The test of noncued information showed that capital cueing yielded lower scores than the control, but the bold cuing did not. It seems that with capital cueing, the benefit on the test of cued information is counter-balanced by a decline in the test of uncued information. As such a trade-off did not occur with the bold cueing, this would seem a preferable format. Pre-test condition had a significant effect only on the test of noncued information.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

PETER COLES

present address: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford.