[lenseman]

The study is somewhat flawed from the get-go. As I have always known it to be human beings retain far more information when they read light coloured text on a dark background than when reading dark text on a light background. The study is comparing two means of reading that are based on something less than ideal.

This is why chalkboards (at least originally) were black with white chalk being used. They did studies with all different shades and colours of chalkboards and chalk with children of different ages. The studies showed that the children learned better and retained more information when reading light text on a dark background. Photo-recall I think is a way of circumventing the obstacle of reading with the colours reversed. Basically you are allowing yourself you stair at the writing (in your head) for as long as you need to in order to get the information. The only reason books continued to be printed in black ink on white paper is because they were cheaper to produce. Now we have done it for so long that e-readers have been based off of this design.

I have proven it for myself before. There was a time in the early days of the net where I would save documents from the internet locally and switch the colours around and those docs stayed in my head after just one reading far longer than ones shown in the standard black on white.

Text in a paperback is pretty much the same as text in e-ink. As someone already said it is just fear of change. It could also just be some group trying to make a name for themselves using scare tactics marketed as 'scientific research'.