5 ms·
Link to the actual paper: http://psi.sagepub.com/content/17/1/4.full?ijkey=0GSjhNaccRKTY&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi http://psi.sagepub.com/content/17/1/4.full?ijk
by vpeters25 11y ago
Link to the actual paper: http://psi.sagepub.com/content/17/1/4.full?ijkey=0GSjhNaccRKTY&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi http://psi.sagepub.com/content/17/1/4.full?ijkey=0GSjhNaccRK...
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%.
- sosuke 11y agoDid you find a personal improvement when inhibiting subvocalization? I find it an interesting idea. I'd love to be able to process two streams of English at once but find the inner voice has only one channel it can work with. I can't listen and read but that would be awesome.
- vpeters25 11y agoIn my personal experience just inhibiting subvocalization resulted in increasing my reading speed to around 300 wpm. With other techniques (using peripheral vision to read multiple words per "shot") I got to around 440 wpm. All this based on the tests in the book I used. The book[1] claimed you could reach up to 1200 wpm by doing all the exercises, I never got to finish all of them. [1] "Superlectura veloz" (fast super-reading) - Carlos Quiroga
- wapapaloobop 11y agoThere seems to be some ambiguity in the term 'subvocalization'. Should it refer strictly to (A) the internal monologue, (B) micro-movements of speaking muscles, or (C) both? Correct me if I'm wrong, but my suspicion is that parsing and comprehension of text would be impossible without A. But also that A is slowed by B; thus reducing or eliminating B is beneficial.
- vpeters25 11y agoThe book I used on speed reading claimed subvocalization (internal monologue) was a "bad habit" that can be eliminated with practice. As far as my personal experience, it does.
- lhopki01 11y agoIt is almost certainly the internal monologue. I can read in two ways. One in which I have the words in my head as I read them and the other in which I just 'comprehend' entire sections of sentences at once. In the second there is never an internal monologue just comprehension. The second method lets me read most books in an evening, not sure what that works out in wpm but I was always significantly faster than anyone else at school at reading.
- adajos 11y agoI can't imagine that it's possible for me to inhibit subvocalization. It seems intrinsic to the way I read.
- vpeters25 11y agoI 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.
- lhopki01 11y agoI never consciously inhibited subvocalization, it just must have happened at some point as I got faster and faster at reading. I think it just comes down to speed. I comprehend the word or phrase before I can even begin a subvocalisation and so I'm already onto the next section.