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

We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

blog.readwise.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 144 posts

Re: We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

#101

Post by ffhhj »

Barrin92 wrote: post #90

can we kill this entire fad of speed reading and productivity life hack nonsense already? I propose we start to advocate slow reading in the spirit of Peter Norvig's learn programming in 10 years , and tell people to actually enjoy what it is they're reading.

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

Re: We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

#103

Post by bradrn »

Terr_ wrote: post #93
ASalazarMX wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> human speech appears to have a universal transmission rate of around 39-bits per second This is unacceptable, we need a modern language that packs information tighter!

I think this is in jest, but to answer seriously: No, I think that's actually backwards, trying to make a language more "packed" will harm information flow. Evidence suggests the real limit is how quickly human brains can take ideas/qualia, convert them into abstractions, and encode the abstractions into language. This is because (A) very different languages still exhibit similar limits and (B) those limits appear to…

The other problem with this idea is that natural languages contain quite a bit of redundancy, which is why speech and writing can be decoded even over very noisy channels. It’s hard to make language more compact without removing some redundancy.

That being said, this has been attempted before: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedtalk and https://www.zompist.com/kitlong.html#howmany, and especially https://web.archive.org/web/20000503004430/http://fatmac.ee.... for a detailed attempt.

Re: We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

#105

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

Terr_ wrote: post #93
ASalazarMX wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> human speech appears to have a universal transmission rate of around 39-bits per second This is unacceptable, we need a modern language that packs information tighter!

I think this is in jest, but to answer seriously: No, I think that's actually backwards, trying to make a language more "packed" will harm information flow. Evidence suggests the real limit is how quickly human brains can take ideas/qualia, convert them into abstractions, and encode the abstractions into language. This is because (A) very different languages still exhibit similar limits and (B) those limits appear to…

A related rant I've had over the years: the redundancy present in human language is not a flaw to be optimized away. Evolution went there because it acts as a form of forward error correction.

Re: We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

#106

Post by Terr_ »

O__________O wrote: post #99
Terr_ wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is in jest, but to answer seriously: No, I think that's actually backwards, trying to make a language more "packed" will harm information flow. Evidence suggests the real limit is how quickly human brains can take ideas/qualia, convert them into abstractions, and encode the abstractions into language. This is because (A) very different languages still exhibit similar limits and (B) those limits appear to…

>> “People can comprehend spoken words at a higher rate than they can spontaneously emit them.” If you have any links to research supporting this, I would be interested.

A Large Inclusive Study of Human Listening Rates [1] focused on finding optimal generated-speech rates for screen-reader software:

> The mean Listening Rate was 56.8, which corresponds to 309 WPM. Given that people typically speak at a rate of 120-180 WPM, these results suggest that many people, if not most, can understand speech signifcantly [sic] faster than today’s conversational agents with typical human speaking rates.

While there was some difference between the visually-impaired and normal-vision respondents, I don't think it's enough to matter to the thesis of my post:

> [...] The mean Listening Rate for visually impaired participants was 60.6 (334 WPM) while for sighted participants it was 55.1 (297 WPM).

1: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3173574.3174018

Re: We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

#107

Post by Terr_ »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #105
Terr_ wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is in jest, but to answer seriously: No, I think that's actually backwards, trying to make a language more "packed" will harm information flow. Evidence suggests the real limit is how quickly human brains can take ideas/qualia, convert them into abstractions, and encode the abstractions into language. This is because (A) very different languages still exhibit similar limits and (B) those limits appear to…

A related rant I've had over the years: the redundancy present in human language is not a flaw to be optimized away. Evolution went there because it acts as a form of forward error correction.

Except when the complex houses married and single soldiers and their families. :P

Re: We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

#108

Post by civilized »

thorum wrote: post #70

The article’s conclusion doesn’t seem to match the data they collected. They found that most people (52%) do read faster with bionic reading, the effect is generally quite small, but large for some minority of users - at least one user read 293 WPM faster with Bionic Reading! The authors then average results (good and bad) across all users, resulting in a number close to zero, and conclude Bionic Reading doesn’t work…

People collect all sorts of fascinating data but then analyze it so superficially, throwing very low-hanging fruit away without a thought. The biggest loss is information about individual variation.

Why do we only crunch data down to averages? Differences in group variation can be measured just as rigorously as differences in group averages. Repeatedly testing an unusual individual is perfectly legitimate and scientifically interesting. There is no Law of Science that says you have to execute a boring protocol that rigidly assumes everyone is the same.

There's a classic story about how the Air Force learned that no one is average, and switched from fixed "average" cockpit fittings to adjustable ones, greatly reducing accidents. But it seems like no one has learned from this.

For heaven's sake, let's try to learn about individuals and what works for them!

Re: We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

#109

Post by w-j-w »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #94
Barrin92 wrote: post #90

can we kill this entire fad of speed reading and productivity life hack nonsense already? I propose we start to advocate slow reading in the spirit of Peter Norvig's learn programming in 10 years , and tell people to actually enjoy what it is they're reading.

Agree. Even beyond enjoyment I’ve heard multiple very accomplished people in a variety of fields (from theology to math) say in interviews “I’m actually a very slow reader.” So sure reading fast would be nice, but I think that’s mostly biological whereas slow quality reading you have full control of and we need to focus on that instead.

No post body was provided.

Re: We found no evidence that Bionic Reading has a positive effect on reading speed

#110

Post by spartanatreyu »

jms wrote: post #100
O__________O wrote: post #23

Here’s what appears to be an independent review of Spritz: https://www.tsw.it/wp-content/uploads/Rapid-serial-visual-pr... One of the issues with tests like these is that the companies sponsor the research and they are one-off vs long exposure studies; that is as with most interfaces with high-throughput, takes time for the mind to adjust. My guess that given human speech appears to have a universal transmission rate…

Blind people who use screen readers usually turn up the speed to something unintelligible to the rest of us. Maybe reading a computer screen is a simpler task than talking person to person, but it's an interesting datapoint!

Not blind, but I often watch youtube videos from 2x - 4x speed, only going below 2x to review complicated information (pausing a tutorial to read the text/code/image on the screen) or if the timing of information is part of the information (music, comedic timing, etc...)
Post reply on HN