On Effects of Indentation and Underlining in Reference Work

Abstract

An experimental study with 252 10- to 12-year-old pupils as subjects investigated the effects of indentation and underlining of keywords in reference work. It was assumed that indentation and underlining would make it easier to recognize word shapes, and that this effect would be stronger with the familiar shapes of meaningful words than with nonsense words. Results showed that only indentation made recognition faster, but not underlining; and that this effect was equally strong with meaningful and nonsense words. In total, nonsense words were recognized 17% slower than meaningful material.