Submission + - Comic Sans Makes You Smarter (bbc.co.uk) 2
Researchers at Princeton University employed volunteers to learn made-up information about different types of aliens — and found that those reading harder fonts recalled more when tested 15 minutes later. They argue that schools could boost results by simply changing the font used in their basic teaching materials.
The 28 volunteers in the Princeton study were given 90 seconds to try to memorize a list of seven features for three different species of alien. The idea was to re-create the kind of learning in a biology class. Aliens were chosen to be sure that none of the volunteers' prior knowledge interfered with the results.
One group was given the lists in 16-point Arial pure black font, which is generally regarded to be easy and clear to read. The other had the same information presented in either 12-point Comic Sans MS 75% greyscale font or 12-point Bodoni MT 75% greyscale.