The short answer is yes. The long answer? It depends on your ultimate intention.

Within the brain, the hippocampus is our gateway to memory. Essentially, all new information entering the brain must pass through this neural structure in order to be converted into long-term memory.

Lining the hippocampus are millions of tiny structures called place cells. These continuously and subconsciously encode both the spatial layout of whatever objects we are interacting with and our physical relationship to those objects.

For instance, if I were to put you in a maze, place cells would not only map out the global pattern of the maze but also your unique location within that pattern as you walked through it.

This means that spatial layout is an integral aspect of all newly formed memories.

Chances are you’ve never explicitly memorised the location of your stapler, mug and other items on your desk, but if someone were to unexpectedly rearrange them, you’d immediately recognise that something was amiss. This is spatial layout in action.

When reading short passages (three pages or less), there does not appear to be any difference between print and digital: people learn equally from both media. However, once the passages being read stretch beyond three pages, then print almost always outperforms digital.

Why might that be? Print ensures that material is in an unchanging and everlasting three-dimensional location. This is why, even though we rarely consciously focus on the spatial organisation of paragraphs, many can recall that a particular passage is “about halfway through the book on the bottom, right-hand page”. This unvarying location is embedded within our memory and can be utilised to help trigger recall of relevant content in the future.

Unfortunately, digital media have neither an unchanging nor everlasting spatial organisation. When reading a PDF document, for example, words will begin at the bottom of the screen, move to the middle, then disappear at the top. Without a fixed physical location, we lose this component of memory and cannot draw upon spatial organisation as a cue to recall content in the future (leaving us at a distinct disadvantage to those who can).

Modern e-readers have addressed this by allowing users to “flip” between pages (rather than scroll through them).

Although this is a step in the right direction, it still omits the important third dimension - depth, which allows for the unambiguous triangulation of information.

While print does trump digital when it comes to memory formation, this does not mean that digital tools are useless.

If committing something to memory is not the primary desired outcome (for instance, if you are more interested in engagement or interactivity), then digital tools offer unique features that print could never match.

Digital features, such as resizing, re-colouring and repositioning of text, can greatly assist readers with visual and/or attention impairments. Additionally, digital tools allow for easy content searching, hyperlinking and quizzing - features that can drive curiosity and engagement.

As such, the best approach is not to select a single medium and stick with it come hell or high water. Rather, the secret is to clarify and explicate the learning outcomes you desire. Once you’re clear on your specific task intentions, then you can select the tool best suited to achieving that end.

Dr Jared Cooney Horvath is a neuroscientist, educator and author, and is director of the Science of Learning Group. He is an honorary research fellow at St Vincent’s Hospital (an arm of the University of Melbourne’s Medical School) and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. His new book is Stop Talking, Start Influencing. Read the Tes review at bit.ly/Tes_Horvath