4 ms·

I’ve heard this a lot. I always listen at normal 1x speed and that usually seems plenty fast as my mind gets busy with visualizing the scenes and characters and

by gfody 7y ago

I’ve heard this a lot. I always listen at normal 1x speed and that usually seems plenty fast as my mind gets busy with visualizing the scenes and characters and filling in bits of detail and whatnot for realism. I wonder if folks who speed it up have their minds similarly engaged or if they’re just having a much lesser experience. To me it’d be like trying to watch a movie on fast forward.

stordoff 7y ago
I typically read at 300-500 wpm (I don't really subvocalise - it's not a deliberate choice, I just don't, and don't remember ever doing, when reading at a 'normal' speed), and I'm always visualising scenes and characters (there are some I can distinctly remember, years later). Listening to an audio book at regular speed, I'm often waiting for the next piece of detail, and that pulls me out of it. That is sometimes the lesser experience (for me) - I generally find it much more difficult to build a mental image at the slower pace. If I really pay attention, I can sometimes 'hear' fragments of words and individual words - it's like a partial subvocalisation (something like "I listen 1x speed plenty fast visual fill detail"). If I deliberately slow myself down (as I often do if I'm particularly enjoying a certain section, or if a section is particularly intricate), I subvocalise as normal, but at the same time I lose the visual aspects of picturing a scene. I start to hear the prose, but lose the visualisation.
kd5bjo 7y ago
Not necessarily lesser, but different. My brain doesn’t generally visualize anything, but it’s good at building a semantic web that connects cause and effect. If you ask me to describe the physical characteristics of a character in a book that I read, I probably can’t, unless it has an effect on the plot. But I have no real trouble keeping track of what’s going on in books like The Count of Monte Cristo where everyone has half a dozen names and different motivations they’re willing to show to different people. I also listen to things at 1x speed because I don’t care for the audio artifacts from the speedup process, but I have to be in the right mood for it. If I’m too energetic, the book won’t hold my attention and my mind will wander to other things— I’ll mentally shut it off and have no idea what’s going on when I try to resume the book.
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viraptor 7y ago
That may be the difference though. I'm happy to listen at 2x, but also when I'm reading a scene description which is not relevant to the plot, my brain goes "boooring!" and zones out for a few paragraphs. I guess we both get what we want our of the experience, but at different speeds.
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by gfody 7y ago

stordoff 7y ago

I typically read at 300-500 wpm (I don't really subvocalise - it's not a deliberate choice, I just don't, and don't remember ever doing, when reading at a 'normal' speed), and I'm always visualising scenes and characters (there are some I can distinctly remember, years later). Listening to an audio book at regular speed, I'm often waiting for the next piece of detail, and that pulls me out of it. That is sometimes the lesser experience (for me) - I generally find it much more difficult to build a mental image at the slower pace. If I really pay attention, I can sometimes 'hear' fragments of words and individual words - it's like a partial subvocalisation (something like "I listen 1x speed plenty fast visual fill detail"). If I deliberately slow myself down (as I often do if I'm particularly enjoying a certain section, or if a section is particularly intricate), I subvocalise as normal, but at the same time I lose the visual aspects of picturing a scene. I start to hear the prose, but lose the visualisation.

kd5bjo 7y ago

Not necessarily lesser, but different. My brain doesn’t generally visualize anything, but it’s good at building a semantic web that connects cause and effect. If you ask me to describe the physical characteristics of a character in a book that I read, I probably can’t, unless it has an effect on the plot. But I have no real trouble keeping track of what’s going on in books like The Count of Monte Cristo where everyone has half a dozen names and different motivations they’re willing to show to different people. I also listen to things at 1x speed because I don’t care for the audio artifacts from the speedup process, but I have to be in the right mood for it. If I’m too energetic, the book won’t hold my attention and my mind will wander to other things— I’ll mentally shut it off and have no idea what’s going on when I try to resume the book.

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viraptor 7y ago

That may be the difference though. I'm happy to listen at 2x, but also when I'm reading a scene description which is not relevant to the plot, my brain goes "boooring!" and zones out for a few paragraphs. I guess we both get what we want our of the experience, but at different speeds.

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