1. Running head: INFORMATION LAYOUT DESIGN AND MEMORY RECALL
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Information Layout Design and Memory Recall
Jessica C. Krawczyk
University of Wisconsin – Green Bay

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Abstract
In our study we wanted to discover if the physical appearance of a slide presentation
affects our ability to recall the information or material presented. We studied results from 61
introductory psychology and human development students from the University of Wisconsin -
Green Bay’s ERLP program who chose our study and then were randomly assigned to view
either a black and white slideshow or a colored one. We hypothesized that viewing a colored
slideshow would have greater effect on the recall of information. Our findings did not support
our hypothesis. Color and font were shown to have no effect on memory in our study. We then
duplicated our results and tested the effect it would have on 122 students, yet our findings
continued to be of no significance.

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Information Layout Design and Memory Recall
In recent years there has been an increase in interest about how to display information to
be best learned by students (Farey & Grant, 1976). People are very interested to find out what
design display techniques are best suited for information recall when material is taught in a
classroom (Larson, 2004). When reviewing previous literature relating to color and font style of
information displayed to people along with their recall of the material (Doyle & Bottomley,
2006), I did not find a complete study which explored what I was curious about. The color and
font variation being strategically used in the classroom to maximize knowledge retained. So in
light of that our online study tested students’ recall by using identical information. This material
was displayed in either plain white background with black text and in multicolored slides, we
also used this study to discover students’ preferences of color. The purpose of this study was to
decipher if changes in font color, background color, or /and font style lead to changes in memory
and recall of information.
How important would it be if students could easily recall five more answers on an exam?
Typically standard fill-in-the-circle exams are fifty questions, worth two points each. Five
multiplied by two is ten percent. Ten percent. That is enough to increase their overall score by an
entire letter grade, (74% would jump to an 84%). Wouldn’t that influence, by a significant
amount, a student’s overall GPA? This would thereby improve the school’s ranking and help
someone to be in stronger standing to get accepted to a better school, or be eligible for more
scholarship money.
There are many previous studies on memory (Farey & Grant, 1976; Gasser, Boeke,
Hafferman & Tan, 2005; Godar, 2000). Previous studies have researched whether multicolored

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presentations or black and white presentations increase the long term storage of information
given. Farey and Grant’s study specifically looked at information recall once a week after the
material was presented to the students. These researchers challenged the current information
about visual arousal which was previously accepted in the academic setting during that time. The
previous findings discovered that when comparing black and white to color, it didn’t seem to
have an effect on the memory of the material for the students. However, that changed with Farey
and Grant’s study in 1976. This must have been the study to start the intrigue of visual arousal
when pertained to learning to help increase information recall, leading research on this topic to
where it is today.
Other studies focused more on the font style and whether or not it had an effect on the
recall of information (Gasser, Boeke, Hafferman & Tan, 2005). Which font type had more
influence, serif or san serif? In this specific study, while comparing two fonts, they also varied
the spacing of the information on the documents that were given to college students. The
findings of this study were that serif style fonts tend to increase the recall of the information that
was given to the learners, which we took into account on which font to use when creating our
study.
Yet more studies also were interested in color and its effect on the brain and memory,
(Morey, Cong, Zheng, Price, and Morey, 2015) but more specifically on how moods were shown
in the responses given based on the color of the survey taken online (Godar, 2000). The findings
in Godar’s study was of which color presented surveys and black and white surveys didn’t
change the overall responses or effect given by and on the participants. However, the colored
surveys showed much more variability in responses when compared to the plain surveys. The

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surveys in Godar’s study are linked to another idea of how slideshow presentations the method
of choice for teachers to instruct learning material in the classroom (Larson, 2004). When
looking at the results from our study, we will observe and take note of the varying responses and
see if there is a relationship.
While all this research is insightful and interesting, we need to see if mixing it will make
a difference on mood and information recall, because increasing a mood will increase learning as
well. The purpose of this study is to understand whether colored or plain presentations increase
long term or short term memory recall. Also, would memory be affected by the types of font
used on a plain or multicolored presentation? Will color affect the positive mood of the students
or participants learning material? Research is needed to find out whether color can serve more
than just one purpose in a learning environment to help the academic world in helping their own
students. Will changes in font color, background color and font style lead to changes in memory?
I hypothesize that while color increases mood, it also will increase memory on
information recall. I have taken into account previous studies done and expect more variation on
mood, as well as increased learning. The preference of the students on grayscale or multicolor
being their favorite pixels in which to view, will be taken when participants rate two similar
images to understand which overall composition and appearance the individual and groups prefer
more. I assume the colored picture will be rated better, and the students will be more receptive to
the colored survey. Color is more interesting and drawing to the eye, so I hypothesize the
answers of the colored surveyed participants to be greater scoring with the information than the
plain black and white surveyed participants in the correct answers given from information on the
PowerPoint.

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Method
Design
Our study had an independent variable which was the design of the slides that
participants viewed. This variable had two different levels: black and white slides, and colorful
slides. The dependent variable was the memory recall of the information provided on the slides
which was measured by their scores on a quiz they took after the presentation. Our study was an
independent-group design because the participants were only shown one of the groups of slides
and not the other. More specifically, it was a posttest only design where we tested the
participants only after they has completely viewed the timed PowerPoint presentation.
Participants
All of the 61 participants in this study were from the University of Wisconsin –
Green Bay, ERLP program. All participants were over the age of 18 and understood the
informed consent when they proceeded to take our survey. 12 of the participants were male
(19.7%), 48 of the participants were female (78.7%). One participant did not share his/her sex,
nor did they fill out any part of our survey. The mean age represented in our study was about 23.
The majority of participants were between the ages of 18 and 22. There were two outliers at ages
29 and 56. College year distributions were as follows: 42 participants were freshman (68.9%),
eleven were sophomores (18%), five were juniors (82%), and two were seniors (3.3%). For
students’ ethnicities six were Asian/Pacific Islander (9.8%), two were African American (3.3%),
one was Hispanic (1.6%), and 51 were white (83.65%).

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Materials
After the presentation of three slides per condition ended, the students were asked to
answer two sets of questions about two varying picture. One being in black and white, the other
in color. These questions asked whether they found the picture beautiful, if they were feeling
relaxed, overwhelmed and upset. The questions were worded to be answered with the Likert
scale in order to calculate the results based on feelings of the person to each picture and to see if
there was a difference in opinion. After this intermission, we asked 10 questions based on the
material given in the PowerPoint presentation. These questions were designed to be
straightforward and not tricky to gauge the memory recall of the given information. To conclude
the survey we asked participants to rate the slide show they watched according to another Likert
scale. The categories rated were the students’ opinion on how well the PowerPoint was designed,
was it informational, was it colorful, was it interesting and was it exciting. (See Appendix - A)
Procedure
Participants at UWGB were from the ERLP program which all general education
Introduction to Psychology and Human Development students need to acquire 10 points in over
the course of the semester. There is great variance in these general education classes. The
students in these courses periodically look through the studies that are being offered and choose
to sign up for the ones they wish to partake in. This ensured fair selection of our study to the
students, making this a random sample. The participants were first asked six questions to acquire
background of demographic and academic knowledge. The participants were then automatically
and randomly put into one of two groups, one group seeing a plain black and white PowerPoint
presentation, the other seeing a vibrant and colorful PowerPoint presentation. They were then

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asked to sit back and the automatically timed presentation on facts about the University of
Wisconsin – Green Bay’s history, the information and layout of the information was identical.
Results
Of the 60 students who participated in this study, 59 filled out the entirety of the survey
and one didn’t answer any of the recall questions about the PowerPoint slides presented. The
students’ memory recall was measured by a ten question quiz on the material that was provided
in the presentation. We found between the groups seeing the colored slides versus the group who
saw the black and white slides there was not a significant difference.
There was not a significant difference in test score across the conditions, F(1,58) = .192,
p=.663. The mean of the black and white slides was 7.23, the standard deviation is 2.4. The mean
of the colored slides was 7.46 with a standard deviation of 1.72. When duplicating this data to
see if more participants would impact the significance of our study, we also found there was not
a significant difference in test score across the conditions, F(1,120)=.390, p=.534.
Participants ratings of how colorful their presentation appeared was according to the
presentation they were randomly assigned to and rated on a Likert scale which ranged from one
(strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). F(1,58) = 147.791, p<.000. This manipulation check
shows the correlation and construct validity due to its significance.
We hypothesized the colorful presentation observers to have a higher overall quiz score
than the black and white presentation observers. In looking at the entirety of the results from
correlations, frequencies and in ANOVA tests, the aggregate results suggest very little difference
between the majority outcomes of the two groups. See Graph A. The only statistically significant

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finding we found between the two exam scores was one question was vastly more correct on the
blue slide than on the black and white slides.
Discussion
The goal of this study was to compare multicolored slides to black and white PowerPoint
slides and the cognition of one over the other. The results from our experiment showed that our
hypothesis was not supported. There was not a significant difference on the quiz score between
the two conditions of colored versus black and white.
Understanding limitations and confounds in our study is very important. They may have
included certain individuals who are color impaired or color blind to certain colors we used on
our colored presentation slides. Thereby not being affected by our manipulated variable. Also
they may include little ethnic variation, known due to the demographic ethnic composition of
Green Bay, WI which is a majority of white people. Age variation in the population that was
readily available to be sampled was also a limitation as was the small sample size collected over
a short period of time to produce the data given and the honesty in test taking represeted in the
answers given by the participants. They also can confound the data by looking up the answers
online because no one is watching them. There may also be distractions or stress on them,
depending on the time of day and where they take the study. This makes it hard to generalize the
findings accurately because we cannot control those other variables. Ideally there should be an
ethnic diverse population, a larger sample size, more age range available and the data should be
collected over a longer time period than a week in various geographical settings. This would
collect stronger data with possibly more variation in test scores answers provided in opinion of

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the two layouts and moods between the black and white presented people versus multicolored
presentation people. Our presentation also may have lacked difficulty when its compared to other
material college students are quizzed on through their schooling.
When I redo and change this study the things I would go back and change would be in the
first demographic and information about the participant sections, I would include a question
asking about the individual's color perception and ask the person to tell whether they are color
blind or not, this would help us to see if that affects that person or peoples outcomes. I would
also change the survey taking part as well. I would have participants come in and take the survey
in the lab where it is a controlled environment without distractions, thereby increasing
concentration and legitimacy of the results. But before they took the quiz in the lab, the two
groups would be in two classrooms with the two conditions, colored or black and white. The
fourth thing I would change would be not only for it to be taken in the lab, but for it to be taken
for a grade to enhance the drive to do well, to see if that makes a difference. Also the kind of
information the students are quizzed on. I would like to have groups from different major
programs at different ages split down the middle and compare psych students to psych students
and so on and so forth across the two conditions.
In the future, research should be done to continue to test the statistical significance of
comparative learning to utilize the most effect ways to use various learning tools. Utilizing these
in the classroom will continue to promote learning which develops as humans do. Helping us to
cognitively remember more, better.

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References
Doyle, J. R., & Bottomley, P. A. (2006). Dressed for the occasion: Font-product congruity in the
perception of logotype. Journal of Consumer Psychology,16(2), 112-123.
doi:10.1207/s15327663jcp1602_2
Farley, F., & Grant, A. (1976). Arousal and cognition: Memory for color versus black and white
multimedia presentation. The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 94(1), 147-
50. doi: 10.1080/00223980.1976.9921410
Gasser, M., Boeke, J., Haffernan, M., & Tan, R. (2005). The influence of font type on information
recall. North American Journal of Psychology, 7(2), 181-88. Retrieved from http://najp.8m.com/
Godar, S. (2000). Use of color and responses to computer-based surveys. Perceptual and Motor
Skills, 91(3), 767-70. doi: 10.2466/pms.2000.91.3.767
Grobelny, J., & Mich.alski, R. (2015). The role of background color, interletter spacing, and font size
on preferences in the digital presentation of a product. Computers in Human Behavior, 43, 85-
100. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.10.036
Larson, R. B. (2004). Slide composition for electronic presentations. Journal of Educational
Computing Research, 31, 61-76. doi:10.2190/5T0H-9Y7B-B134-68A2
Morey, C., Cong, Y., Zheng, Y., Price, M., and Morey, R. (2015). The color-sharing bonus: Roles of
perceptual organization and attentive processes in visual working memory. Archives of Scientific
Psychology, 3(1), 18-29. doi: 10.1037/arc0000014
Spitzer, B., & Bäuml, K. (2009). Retrieval-induced forgetting in a category recognition task. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35(1), 286-91. doi:
10.1037/a0014363

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Appendix
Graph A