Students in a first-year undergraduate course were divided into two groups. All the students in both groups were given newspaper articles identical in every respect, except for the headline, which was different for each group. When the students were later asked questions about the contents of the article, the answers given by the two groups were markedly different, though within each group the answers were similar.
Newspaper headlines hamper a reader's ability to comprehend the corresponding articles is most strongly supported by the information above.