Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 133 posts

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#111

Post by hackuser »

jobigoud wrote: post #37

Regarding audio they say: > Doubling the speed, in our experience, leaves individual words perfectly identifiable — but makes it just about impossible to follow the meaning. Wow, sorry but this is very misinformed. A lot of people me included can listen to audio at 2x. I constantly listen to podcasts (so not a slow narration to begin with) at 2x in English which is not even my native language and I understand everyth…

All these responses about subjective, andecodtal experiences are interesting, but is there any data or any research to support it?

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#112

Post by mintplant »

jobigoud wrote: post #110
ash wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The application I use What application do you use for listening?

Well I haven't tested a lot of them so not sure if it's relevant but I use DoggCatcher as a player and another app called Presto that shims the Android audio layer to increase the speech rate transparently for the player app. It's Presto that uses the Sonic library.

Do you have a link for Presto? I can't find anything about it online.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#113

Post by jasode »

hackuser wrote: post #111
jobigoud wrote: post #37

Regarding audio they say: > Doubling the speed, in our experience, leaves individual words perfectly identifiable — but makes it just about impossible to follow the meaning. Wow, sorry but this is very misinformed. A lot of people me included can listen to audio at 2x. I constantly listen to podcasts (so not a slow narration to begin with) at 2x in English which is not even my native language and I understand everyth…

All these responses about subjective, andecodtal experiences are interesting, but is there any data or any research to support it?

I don't have research about 2x audio to cite but I think there are datapoints that the authors didn't consider when they wrote "Doubling the speed [...] makes it just about impossible to follow the meaning."

Consider that most of us can read text at a normal unhurried speed of 200wpm to 300wpm. We also hear this "inner voice" as we read the written words. This subvocalization is therefore "sounding out" the words at ~300wpm in our head.

However, many people speak out loud at only ~100wpm. For many of us, accelerating speech from 1x to 3x is simply making the speaker sound out the words at 300wpm. Since that's the same as our subvocalization wpm, the meaning is not impossible to follow. Most humans can't move their mouths fast enough to talk at 300wpm -- but with digital technology -- they don't have to.

Spoken recordings at 100wpm is mind-numbingly slow and it would just make my mind wander.

I think the authors should have surveyed a hundred youtube users that always take advantage of the 2x speed option. They would have been surprised to learn that people can follow the meaning of the words at 200wpm very easily.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#114

Post by [deleted] »

jasonkester wrote: post #9

I don't get why anybody would want to speed read a novel. (Outside of a High School literature class where you're being forced to read Ethan Frome and you just want to get back to playing Minecraft, of course). When I'm reading Hemingway, I'll go back and read individual paragraphs three times to squeeze the last drop of juice out of them. There are only so many Hemingway paragraphs in existence, so wasting one feels…

[deleted]

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#115

Post by ajcarpy2005 »

It's a skill that works by paying attention to different structural details in the writing. Instead of breaking up individual words, it looks first for the signal of the sentence parts and sentences as wholes with a higher level of meaning. Given that individual words can have multiple meanings, it skips a layer. Once you get the context going you should already have a predictive model for what definition of the word is meant.

It helps if the writing is clear and flowing.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#116

Post by [deleted] »

peteretep wrote: post #52
isomorph wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, I used to speed read each Harry Potter book when it came out, just to find out the plot so nobody could spoil it for me, and then I'd read it again later for enjoyment

It's upsetting you're getting down-voted. Every Neal Stephenson book I've read, I've gone through at break-neck pace wanting to know what happens, and later reread substantially more slowly to get make sure I follow as many of the ideas as possible.

[deleted]

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#118

Post by hackuser »

jasode wrote: post #113
hackuser wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these responses about subjective, andecodtal experiences are interesting, but is there any data or any research to support it?

I don't have research about 2x audio to cite but I think there are datapoints that the authors didn't consider when they wrote "Doubling the speed [...] makes it just about impossible to follow the meaning." Consider that most of us can read text at a normal unhurried speed of 200wpm to 300wpm. We also hear this "inner voice" as we read the written words. This subvocalization is therefore "sounding out" the words at…

> there are datapoints that the authors didn't consider

In fairness, 1) we don't know what the authors considered; they apparently have done a lot of research on the subject, and 2) what you list aren't data

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#119

Post by jasode »

hackuser wrote: post #118
jasode wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have research about 2x audio to cite but I think there are datapoints that the authors didn't consider when they wrote "Doubling the speed [...] makes it just about impossible to follow the meaning." Consider that most of us can read text at a normal unhurried speed of 200wpm to 300wpm. We also hear this "inner voice" as we read the written words. This subvocalization is therefore "sounding out" the words at…

> there are datapoints that the authors didn't consider In fairness, 1) we don't know what the authors considered; they apparently have done a lot of research on the subject, and 2) what you list aren't data

>we don't know what the authors considered; they apparently have done a lot of research on the subject

That's true we don't know what they considered but a cursory search doesn't find any primary research on 2x audio acceleration performed by either Rebecca Treiman or Jeffrey Zacks. As for reading text, it looks like RT's commentary on speedreading is based on meta-research[1] and not primary lab research. (It's also possible they published primary research in an academic journal that google doesn't index.) It looks like their comment about speech acceleration is anecdotal instead of being based on rigorous research.

>what you list aren't data

Why not? If an audiofile has speech content, one can count the total words, divide by total minutes, and hence, calculate a words-per-minute. Why is wpm not data? The average reading speed of adults is also well-documented: https://www.google.com/search?q=average+reading+speed+of+adu...

In any case, HN readers can try it themselves on a bunch of youtube videos.

For example, the Scarlet Letter novel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnfaAZu0fNE

Another example from a news show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTSr07u8gow

Apple presentation with Tim Cook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zbAFSJCPSI&feature=youtu.be...

Change the playback option to 2x on those videos. Can it really be impossible to understand the meaning as the authors assert?!? For listeners whose native language is not English, perhaps they require the slower 1x playback speed. For most others, I'm very skeptical that 2x speed is impossible to extract meaning.

[1]http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/s...

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#120

Post by enimodas »

mintplant wrote: post #112
jobigoud wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I haven't tested a lot of them so not sure if it's relevant but I use DoggCatcher as a player and another app called Presto that shims the Android audio layer to increase the speech rate transparently for the player app. It's Presto that uses the Sonic library.

Do you have a link for Presto? I can't find anything about it online.

probably https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.falconware...
Post reply on HN