Written by Aditya Shukla, Cognition Today July 14, 2024
Font sizes and typefaces are not just for aesthetics and readability. The precise nature of fonts affect emotions, perception, memory, attention, thinking speed, and reader behavior.
Memory for bold content is higher than normal or italic. Larger fonts also help memory. You can structure your documents/webpages/banners/posters to be memorable by choosing bolder/larger fonts.
Harder-to-read fonts promote the memory of that content. If you make your content too easy to read, readers might not remember it well enough.
Hard-t0-read fonts tend to reduce distractibility by shielding the reader from noise. The mental effort needed to read blocks out the noise.
Serif fonts tend to increase time spent reading compared to sans-serif fonts. The serif increases cognitive load.
If you want your readers to think creatively about your content, make it look pretty. Pretty fonts also reduce negative emotions that may come from the content.
Readability and accuracy of learning improve when there is sufficient negative space between letters. Use fonts where the letters don't appear to hug each other.
Researchers have observed that humans can ascribe emotional and anthropomorphic qualities to typefaces. Some fonts can have sluggish or energetic traits, can have authority or lack of confidence, etc.