Speed Reading. Debunked or Real?
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  1. ISO #1

    Question Speed Reading. Debunked or Real?

    I was interested in learning about the legitimacy of the so called Speed Reading, and so I ended up to this Youtube Video:
    I just wanted your quick opinions, if you guys agree with that guy that speed reading is debunked? I wrote his points down.


    Speed Reading training has 3 techniques that this video addresses:
    1. Enlarging the area of your fixations, thereby wasting less time moving your eyes and also taking in multiple words at a time. Reading using your peripheral vision.
    2. Eliminating subvocalization of the text you read, thereby not being slowed down by it.
    3. Increase your information processing speed by showing you different words at the same exact spot at a rapid succession.

    Do any of these techniques work? Here are the claims put under scrutiny, as in the video, 1 by 1:


    1. Speedreaders can fixate on larger areas of the page.
    First, for the lack of support of this claim he cited a paragraph from this study: "Speedreading" by Marcel Adam Just, et al. (archive.org) And emphasized on burden of proof for those claims not being met:
    “Thomas (1962) described a speed reader with a reading rate of 10,000 wpm, who made an average of six fixations per page, scanning vertically downwards on the lefthand page and upwards on the right. The reader made no fixations on the bottom third of a page and had a mean fixation duration of 320 milliseconds. These studies had no formal measure of comprehension, so it is unclear what information the reader obtained from these fixations.
    Then, for showing a lack of comprehension during “peripheral vision reading” technique being proven, he cited a sentence from that same study as above:
    “In the 30 cases that a rapid reader did not look at or within three letters of the answer, the correct answer was produced only once”



    2. Elimination subvocalization.
    To show that this claim is not scientifically supported, he cited a sentence from a study, except that sentence can’t be found in neither of the studies of that author that he linked, nor can google find that quote.
    One of the studies - So Much to Read, So Little Time: How Do We Read, and Can Speed Reading Help? - Keith Rayner, Elizabeth R. Schotter, Michael E. J. Masson, Mary C. Potter, Rebecca Treiman, 2016 (sagepub.com) - had this sentence though:
    “However, research on normal reading challenges this claim that the use of inner speech in silent reading is a bad habit. As we discussed earlier, there is evidence that inner speech plays an important role in word identification and comprehension during silent reading (see Leinenger, 2014). Attempts to eliminate inner speech have been shown to result in impairments in comprehension when texts are reasonably difficult and require readers to make inferences (Daneman & Newson, 1992; Hardyck & Petrinovich, 1970; Slowiaczek & Clifton, 1980). “
    Which I suspect is what he wanted to quote.
    Additionally, he claims that this NASA computer program: NASA - NASA Develops System To Computerize Silent, "Subvocal Speech" - which detects brain signals for subvocalization - proves the necessity of subvocalization for comprehension. Ofc, adding to this, he reiterated that last sentence that I quoted, saying something like “each time comprehension was tested it went way down when subvocalization stopped”.


    3. Rapid Serial Visual Processing – showing each word in succession, in the same spot.
    First he explains the history of the method.
    Then, he refers back to that first study mentioned: "Speedreading" by Marcel Adam Just, et al. (archie.org) - and explains that people, during reading, fixate intelligently. [they fixate more on content words than function words].
    He also refers to this study:: (PDF) Don't Believe What You Read (Only Once): Comprehension Is Supported by Regressions During Reading (researchgate.net) - and reiterates what that study says, that humans don’t read like that. Humans backread and stuff.
    A quote from that study:
    “Recent Web apps have spurred excitement around the prospect of achieving speed reading by eliminating eye movements (i.e., with rapid serial visual presentation, or RSVP, in which words are presented briefly one at a time and sequentially). Our experiment using a novel trailing-mask paradigm contradicts these claims. Subjects read normally or while the display of text was manipulated such that each word was masked once the reader’s eyes moved past it. This manipulation created a scenario similar to RSVP: The reader could read each word only once; regressions (i.e., rereadings of words), which are a natural part of the reading process, were functionally eliminated. Crucially, the inability to regress affected comprehension negatively. Furthermore, this effect was not confined to ambiguous sentences. These data suggest that regressions contribute to the ability to understand what one has read and call into question the viability of speed-reading apps that eliminate eye movements (e.g., those that use RSVP).”
    He never addresses the point of Rapid serial visual presentation, which is to exercise the brain to process information faster. Neither do neither of those 2 studies - first speaks about RSVP’s history and how it’s not a natural way of reading, while the other just the latter.



    I'm incredibly sorry for how ugly this turned out.
    But what do you think of Speed Reading? My views:
    A) 2 out of 3 training techniques have been thoroughly debunked in that video. All that is left is looking up how legit is this so called RSVP for the purpose of exercising brain processing speed.
    B) From my quick googling, it seems that there's a consensus that somewhere in the range of 500-600 words per minute is the human limit before comprehension starts to drop. I believe speed reading would count at like 1000 words per minute.
    C) My only personal experience with Speed Reading is our own - Light Yagami, the banned. He says he speed reads, but in my FM games with him I remember him consistently every game either misreading or misremember something, more than anyone else.
    Last edited by OzyWho; February 11th, 2022 at 10:05 AM.

  2. ISO #2

    Re: Speed Reading. Debunked or Real?

    Logos:
    University students on the night before exams, assignments dues etc. would desperately want to speedread through their course material, especially those who study social science or law, who usually have course materail known as "cases" that are usually several thousands words in length.

    I took a introductory business course (mainly managerial accounting) back then, and I on average spends like 4 hours preparing for each case. And I have never heard of such thing as "speedreading", therefore it's fake.

    BTW, what's your background in congitive science, neuroscience and psychology?

  3. ISO #3

    Re: Speed Reading. Debunked or Real?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tauntshaman View Post
    Logos:
    University students on the night before exams, assignments dues etc. would desperately want to speedread through their course material, especially those who study social science or law, who usually have course materail known as "cases" that are usually several thousands words in length.

    I took a introductory business course (mainly managerial accounting) back then, and I on average spends like 4 hours preparing for each case. And I have never heard of such thing as "speedreading", therefore it's fake.

    BTW, what's your background in congitive science, neuroscience and psychology?
    None. Why do you ask?

  4. ISO #4

    Re: Speed Reading. Debunked or Real?

    I think it is.

    I am interested in quite a few things you posted there but need time to dig into them.

    The thing I experienced was at a boarding school I went to. Once a week we did these weird reading things where the text would disappear at a rate and afterword's you would get questions about the text you just read. If you did well the next week it would go faster and if you did poorly it would be the same or slower with the goal of making you read faster.

    We were all somewhere between 11 - 17 for the most part but some of the guys got freakishly good at it. I wish I could say the numbers but I remember pushing myself to compete after seeing how fast they could read.

    To the point I am not confident that an old dog can learn new tricks in terms of this sort of thing but I do think that people can be taught in a way that is more effective initially.

  5. ISO #5

    Re: Speed Reading. Debunked or Real?

    Quote Originally Posted by Helz View Post
    I think it is.

    I am interested in quite a few things you posted there but need time to dig into them.

    The thing I experienced was at a boarding school I went to. Once a week we did these weird reading things where the text would disappear at a rate and afterword's you would get questions about the text you just read. If you did well the next week it would go faster and if you did poorly it would be the same or slower with the goal of making you read faster.

    We were all somewhere between 11 - 17 for the most part but some of the guys got freakishly good at it. I wish I could say the numbers but I remember pushing myself to compete after seeing how fast they could read.

    To the point I am not confident that an old dog can learn new tricks in terms of this sort of thing but I do think that people can be taught in a way that is more effective initially.
    Yeah, that's the blue part, the 1 point of contention, the 1 I didn't agree him having debunked.

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    He never addresses the point of Rapid serial visual presentation, which is to exercise the brain to process information faster. Neither do neither of those 2 studies - first speaks about RSVP’s history and how it’s not a natural way of reading, while the other just the latter.

  6. ISO #6

    Re: Speed Reading. Debunked or Real?

    Quote Originally Posted by Helz View Post
    I think it is.

    I am interested in quite a few things you posted there but need time to dig into them.

    The thing I experienced was at a boarding school I went to. Once a week we did these weird reading things where the text would disappear at a rate and afterword's you would get questions about the text you just read. If you did well the next week it would go faster and if you did poorly it would be the same or slower with the goal of making you read faster.

    We were all somewhere between 11 - 17 for the most part but some of the guys got freakishly good at it. I wish I could say the numbers but I remember pushing myself to compete after seeing how fast they could read.

    To the point I am not confident that an old dog can learn new tricks in terms of this sort of thing but I do think that people can be taught in a way that is more effective initially.
    Were you participating in a scientific laboratory? I don't think I've ever heard stories of that happening in schools.

  7. ISO #7

    Re: Speed Reading. Debunked or Real?

    Quote Originally Posted by WrathCyber View Post
    Were you participating in a scientific laboratory? I don't think I've ever heard stories of that happening in schools.
    That school was very different. It had very many extremist behaviors you would never find in a normal school but its education programs were very nitch.

    A lot of it was centered around indoctrination of a specific religious belief and world view which is why it got declared a cult at one point and broke apart after some legal suits.

    You can find some of the same stuff in some fringe nerd education things. Look into some of the MENSA competitions if you want to see some pretty cool stuff. When you dig into the 'how' of people preparing for those contests you hit on some pretty interesting things for education.

 

 

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