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> ISTR studies that retention is much better from printed books than ebooks. Yes, that is correct. It is true that retention is better with a "rigidly & finely
by marvindanig 10y ago
> ISTR studies that retention is much better from printed books than ebooks.
Yes, that is correct. It is true that retention is better with a "rigidly & finely laid out" book. Physical books have a rigid layout so they have that advantage. Some ebook formats too have that quality and those ebooks have a better retention.
Retention/memorization depends on visual signatures of a piece. I mean, apart from the context it is the arrangement of paragraphs, subtle use of diagrams and figures and a well designed layout, and other hints that add up into the pictographic memory that people form while reading books. Also the linear reading direction and sometimes even the page number helps people recall a concept later in life.
- dragonwriter 10y agoActually, AFAIK, rigid layout on emissive scenes doesn't solve the problem, whereas flexible layout on reflective (i.e., eInk) screens at least narrows the retention gap between digital and hardcopy.
- marvindanig 10y agoReally? I thought layout of a book (software) has nothing to do nature of screen (emissive or reflective). By a flexible layout I hope you meant the need to reflow the text, because it is the text that is usually hard to scale across a spectrum of devices/orientations. While I do understand that the nature of screen has an "impact" on the book reading experience (or any software experience), and thus on its device sales, but I'm not sure how the screentype would affect someone's memorizability of an ebooks independent of the layout in use: flexible or rigid. That sounds a bit far fetched. Kindly quote the source of that claim/original research.