
Speed reading promises are too good to be true - apsec112
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160114163035.htm
======
clay_to_n
Bummer. I played with Spritz (a centered-text speed reading API) at a
hackathon a while back, and was pretty impressed. It seemed that I could read
with real comprehension at around 400WPH and "skim" at about 1000. A big part
of your pitch was "moving from word to word takes most of the time while
reading," and I thought they had research to support that.

It's still a fun thing to try if you haven't done it yet. The article points
out what is pretty clearly the biggest problem with these speed readers -
going back to re-read is a big UX challenge. My little hackathon app used a
"back ten words" button (may have been what Spritz recommended?), but I also
thought having the actual paragraphs scrolling above the Spritz text as you
read would be a more useful way of solving this problem. If you get lost, skim
the paragraphs around what you're reading, and press / click a word you want
to start speedreading from again. In more dense material where you need to
flip back a page or two, you might need some sort of zoom out functionality as
well.

If nothing else, these technologies will hopefully find a use in wearables and
other tiny-screen devices.

~~~
EGreg
Yes, tech assisted speed reading should actually work while retaining
comprehension, as your eyes don't move.

~~~
rsfern
The review article here suggests that language processing steps are the
bottleneck, not we movement. So the reasearch suggests that current approach
to using tech (rapid serial display of words) introduces a speed-comprehension
trade off.

Perhaps a better approach would be to develop deep learning systems that sort
of translate cumbersome writing into linguistic structures that our brains can
more easily/quickly digest?

~~~
adrianN
Those systems already exist, they're usually called editors. Sadly, they seem
to be used less and less.

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acqq
Whenever this topic arises, I remember:

"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It
involves Russia." \-- Woody Allen

It's quite old too.

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vpeters25
Link to the actual paper:
[http://psi.sagepub.com/content/17/1/4.full?ijkey=0GSjhNaccRK...](http://psi.sagepub.com/content/17/1/4.full?ijkey=0GSjhNaccRKTY&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi)

I took on speed reading in college after realizing I needed to study and learn
faster or I would fail miserably. The book I picked up seemed like a lot of
common sense steps the first one being to inhibiting subvocalization, the
internal voice we are used to hear while reading since we where taught to read
out loud. The idea here being that our mind can process information much
faster than the speed of speech.

The paper cites several studies that suggest inhibiting subvocalization
reduces comprehension. However it takes the result of these studies as fact
when they might be flawed. An example in their chapter about the role of
phonology:

> First, consider a study in which skilled readers were asked to indicate
> (with a button press) whether briefly presented words were members of a
> certain category (e.g., foods; Van Orden, 1987). The people in this study
> incorrectly responded “yes” to a word that was not a member of the category
> (e.g., meet for the category food) about 19% of the time if that word was a
> homophone of a true member of the category: In this example, meet is
> pronounced the same as meat, which is a food. Incorrect “yes” responses to
> non-homophone words—for example, melt—occurred only 3% of the time.

I looked a the Van Order paper
([http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03197716](http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03197716))
since it shows the highest reading comprehension failure rate (19%). They came
up with that number from an experiment studing just 5 male and 5 female
undergraduate students (see Experiment 1, page 3)

I think citing this study altogether as a basis of one of their main
conclusions (eliminating subvocalization lowers comprehension) is flawed: The
study didn't compare regular undergraduates with speed readers (people skilled
at comprehending without subvocalizing), it just concluded no subvocalization
could lower comprehension by 19%.

~~~
adajos
I can't imagine that it's possible for me to inhibit subvocalization. It seems
intrinsic to the way I read.

~~~
vpeters25
I initially thought the same and found it was really hard to shake it off. It
took me several weeks of frustratingly sticking up with the exercises until I
was able to do it.

But I still tend to fall back into it when I'm reading something hard to
understand, specially when reading english which is not my native language.

------
rwallace
I've never quite seen the point of speed reading. When I read, it's either to
look up some information I need, or for entertainment. In the former case,
it's much more efficient to just look for the particular information and avoid
reading most of the text at all. In the latter case, speed reading would make
the entertainment run out faster.

~~~
kqr
I'm currently (finally!) reading _2001_. I was half a page from the end of a
chapter when my train was seconds from stopping where I wanted to get off.
Thanks to speed reading, I could finish the chapter and put the book down in
my bag before leaving the train!

~~~
clentaminator
Every other commuter I see seems to solve this problem by reading while
they're walking, head down, oblivious to their surroundings.

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kukx
Here's a nice article that summarizes what we know about speed reading (2015)
[http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2015/01/19/speed-reading-
red...](http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2015/01/19/speed-reading-redo/)

------
vinceguidry
If I'm looking to process a reading queue, I'll do a lot of skimming, most
writing contains lots of fluff and very little substance. I look for the main
idea and some supporting context, think about them briefly, make some
conclusions, and move on.

Only if the text is exceptionally well-written will I slow it down and really
dig into what the writer was trying to convey. It's like a conversation. Some
are really worth paying attention to and experiencing, most unfortunately are
not, just perform your social duty and then go find something more interesting
to do.

~~~
SilasX
Bingo. As the saying goes, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I
didn't have the time." (attr. Pascal)

Saying more with fewer words takes work, and not everyone does it, or can do
it.

------
philipwood
Reading used to be supremely difficult. A piece used to be read aloud - after
several personal practice sessions to gain familiarity with the text.

In the 4th century being able to read silently was notably strange.

We've refactored the process quite a bit since then:

Splitting individual words. Introducing capitals to highlight paragraph
boundaries and proper names. Punctuation to speed up parsing. Inter-paragraph
spacing and semantic and syntactic conventions to improve concept parsing.
Etc., etc.

I see no reason to believe we are done yet. :-)

~~~
teraflop
> In the 4th century being able to read silently was notably strange.

I've seen it argued that this is actually a myth, popularized by Nietzsche.
See e.g. [http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?topic=reading-
silentl...](http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?topic=reading-silently)

------
xyzzy4
If your intent is to memorize every factoid and point made in the text, then
speed reading won't be effective.

However, if you naturally skim articles really quickly looking for information
that will be of interest to you, then in a sense you are already speed
reading.

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pgt2art
i've been doing it for a while, and well to me it worked. I didnt follow an
official course just used tips around the internet. I was able to read a huge
work related projected, and make the decision to go into it for our company or
not. By speed reading i found the problems in the project a 500 page doc. And
those where tackled by contract makers. later so it depends if you can do it
or not, but dont put money in it

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carapace
Rapid serial visual presentation. I've had good results with RSVP speed reader
software.

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mdip
On its own, you're not going to magically be able to reduce your reading time
by 95% and still maintain the level of retention you get by a slow word-for-
word read from a few weeks with an app/course. As the article states, there's
more to reading than just swallowing a word more quickly. But the techniques
enable you to change the way you consume information by eliminating the
bottleneck and associated procrastination of staring down a 1000+ page book
and the weeks it will take to get through it.

I'm a huge advocate of speed reading, personally[1]. However, I think the
points made in the article have a lot of merit.

Speed reading should be seen as a tool for consuming information, but you have
to adjust the way you learn accordingly[2]. I can read, cover to cover, a 1000
page book in a few hours. My strategy for learning from a large book is to
read it more than once (often three to four times) to treat the first read as
a 30,000 ft view. I don't do included exercises, and I also limit my note-
taking. My second read is with pen and paper in hand. I break for exercises
and notes, but otherwise continue to read just as rapidly. If I struggled with
the concepts, I'll repeat the process.

Years ago, that book would have taken several sessions to complete _the first
read_ and the second read would only be over particular sections. I'd be done
after weeks, rather than a weekend, which also negatively affected my
retention. Reading from day 1 is built upon and by day 19, it's foggy. When I
can do that in an afternoon, it's fresh on my mind. And at worst, with several
reads, I'm still getting through the material in half the time it would have
previously taken me and with solid retention[3].

It's also not something you become good at over night. After I took the
course, I could read twice as fast, but not twice as effectively. It requires
a lot of practice. When I sit down to read something, I have a goal of
learning whatever it is I'm trying to learn, but I have a second goal of
consuming that material more effectively. The first few years, I focused on
reducing my time spent on the first read. As the years have gone by, I've
adjusted my note-taking and methods for retention. I read a 500+ page book
(often equivalent text in PDF) nearly every weekend. I pick things I am using
today and grab books that build on that.

[1] I took a multi-week course that focused on the typical "eye movement"
techniques along with skim/scan techniques. That course started, for me
personally, a rapid change in my ability to consume information from text and
I still believe it was one of the most important classes I've ever taken. I
_greatly prefer_ book reading over courses these days because I can completely
control my pace from _very rapid_ to _word-for-word_.

[2] I'm speaking purely of technical reading. I do not speed read fiction and
my personal experience is that speed-reading fiction is awful. I stick with
audio books for that.

[3] I do not have data to back this up. I've been reading large, technical
programming books for 18 years, and some of that added speed is that I have a
relative understanding of the work before I begin. I know _how_ to read a
programming book to maximize my retention and I read programming text to
become better at what I do, which is something I've learned how to do from
years of practice.

[Edit: Added a note clarifying fiction vs technical]

~~~
radicality
So this 1000 page book you can read in a few hours are technical or fiction
books? What about the 500 page book over a weekend? Both sound extremely
impressive. What type of technical books are these? Any technical/programming
book I read usually has a lot of exercises to do, or is just non-trivial and
requires more time from me. For example I can't imagine it being possible to
speed-read something like 'Introduction to Algorithms', or anything technical
really.

~~~
armitron
I call bullshit. What he describes would be a _major_ accomplishment worthy of
publication in the most prestigious scientific journals but of course it's
simply not true.

He _may delude_ himself into believing he's actually getting anything out of
the books he's speed reading but I bet if put to the test, his performance in
terms of comprehension would be abysmal.

~~~
mdip
I'm not sure what else I can write to convince you -- I've detailed how I
"read" so quickly in a few comments on this topic. It's true but I don't think
it's all that unusual (your comment is making me think it may be which I'll
try to keep from going to my head).

I used to work in Infrastructure in the early 2000s and a coworker and I had a
running contest on how many certifications we could amass (my company had a
library of reading materials). It was my coworker who pushed me to take a
speed reading course. We'd each read 600+ page books covering the material
around 3 times (maybe 4, but later reads are not complete reads) over a week
while testing each other at work. Both of our pass rates were perfect[1]
(Novell CNE, CNA, MCNE, A+, Security+ -- do those still exist? -- and a myriad
of other certifications of dubious worth) -- failing meant we had to pay out
of pocket, so we passed.

The "first read" is a skim/scan, very superficial read, and it's easy to get
through a large book this way, especially if it's material I'm already
comfortable with. The 1000 page books are technical books (points I made
elsewhere) that aren't all wall to wall content, lots of diagrams, code, etc.
I read a book more than once if I want to learn the content (the first read is
partly to weed out a book that has no value to me).

At the end of the day, it's the equivalent time it takes to _learn_ the
material that matters. After a 2 hour "read" (skim/scan/speed-read) of a 1,000
page book, I'm nowhere _near_ where I'd be if I had read the entire thing,
slowly, word-for-word while taking notes and doing exercises. If I feel the
book is worth it, I'll read it again, then read parts of it carefully, to the
point where I've likely read the book 3-4 times with notes and exercises
included. I'm at "equivalent to reading it slowly" by the end of the second
read. But that's a _low_ bar for a book of that size. Considering that same
exercise would have taken me a month to complete the _first_ read. How much of
Chapter 4-6 will I remember on day 30 of multi-evening broken-up reading
sessions reading it "slowly"? How likely am I to be burned out by then? By
doing it this way, much more of it is fresh in my mind and (most important to
me), I'm more likely to devote the time to learning the material knowing it
will take a week, not a month+, to get what I want out of the book. After
finishing a C++ book recently, I was writing in the language. I'm nowhere
_near_ proficient, having only two books and a 10-year gap in my C++ code
experience, but "the old way" I would have been more likely to let it sit on
the shelf half-read, never completing it. If I did, I wouldn't have been able
to write more than a "Hello, World" program without having it pulled up along-
side my IDE, constantly referring to bits I hadn't read in over a week.

[1] Pass rates, not scores. There were some tests I squeaked by one question
over passing. I scored perfectly on more than a few, though, too.

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safetytrick
That was a quick read.

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sideshowb
I speed read that and I agree with what it says.

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xiphias
TL;DR: Speed reading is just like reading a short summary, and you won't
understand the whole text.

~~~
jasonkostempski
I've seen a few speed reading lessons selling on that angle. It's a good way
to sift through stuff that doesn't come with a summary. Just slow down once
you find the good stuff.

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callumlocke
Straw man? I've never heard it claimed that speed reading can give the same
level of understanding as normal reading. Just that it's a way to quickly get
a sense or gist of a work.

~~~
allemagne
I've definitely seen promos for seminars that claim to "double your speed" and
at the same time "increase your comprehension," so I'd say that speed reading
being on par with normal reading is at least a real claim made sometimes and a
perception that probably exists among many.

~~~
mdip
The course I took promised both, so the problems the article has with speed
reading courses are completely fair IMO. They're ridiculous and on par with
claiming a pill will make you lose hundreds of pounds without any effort or
work.

I've way more than doubled my reading speed from when I took a course 18 years
ago. My retention is dramatically higher, as well. The main reason for the
increased retention, however, had less to do with the course than a change in
the way I consume information from books. If the technical book is worth
reading, I read it at least twice. "Read" includes skimming/scanning
techniques that I've gotten very good at over 18 years. Thinking "well, I can
read 90% faster with these techniques" will result in retention that is _very_
low if you change nothing else. The first read is rapid and haphazard
(sometimes just to figure out if it's worth using the book as a source of
information). The second read will be honed for specific information (and
third and fourth).

That serves two points in favor of retention. By being able to get through a
massive text in a weekend with multiple reads (versus a single read over a few
weeks), that information hasn't become foggy from multiple long
breaks/distractions--it's fresh. My second read is cover-to-cover, but focused
with note-taking and doing exercises. Subsequent reads are surgically focused
on areas where I am weak and are done more slowly.

Before, my learning was single-pass (with some section/chapter review).
Because of the reduced time/effort it takes me read, I can do so in a multi-
pass manner with careful focus on learning the material rather than on the
_act of reading_.

