3 ms·

> I don't use audiobooks, since I find them 'slow'. Audiobook players all have speed controls that let you make them go faster.

lioeters 4y ago
That reminds me when I learned how blind people use the screen reader, the setting for the voice can be at an incredibly fast speed, where the words turn into "bits" of sound. I know people who watch YouTube videos like that, and my brain cannot process spoken words so fast. It also reminds me of hip hop, some of those raps are like a machine gun of words that overload the brain. It's probably about personal preferences in "modes of thinking", visual, verbal, auditory, etc. I much prefer to read something than to watch a video or listen to audio, and can consume information the quickest.
- BugsJustFindMe 4y ago
  > my brain cannot process spoken words that fast Not at first. This is something that people train themselves to do gradually. For me it didn't take very long to get to 3x playback speed for audiobooks, which untrained people usually find incomprehensible, but I started out much slower and then increased the speed a little every day because I wanted to be able to listen to more books.
  - lioeters 4y ago
    That's interesting to know. It makes sense, it's a listening skill that can be developed. I've always wanted to deepen my knowledge of web accessibility, and get more familiar with screen readers - but was afraid it might be too frustrating to navigate while listening to a voice, slow enough to understand. Now I know, it just takes practice. Thanks!
    - knaik94 4y ago
      Youtube videos with closed captions on are a nice way to ease into it. There's chrome extensions to increase the speed over the '2x' playback option youtube gives you. I personally don't enjoy podcasts at above 1.3x to 1.5x speed but when I am reading along with subtitles, I can increase the speed easily to 2.7x+. I don't think I did any specific practice. After a certain amount of minutes, at 1.5x speed, the cadence of lectures at high speed start to feel normal and going back to 1.0x speed feels slow, as if it was 0.7x speed. Sort of like an audio illusion. It reminds me of the feeling you get when you have been on a highway at a high speed for hours on a road trip. For whatever reason, my brain stops understanding how fast the "slow" speed of 20mph is is. So it feels extra slow even though relative to walking it's really fast. Recently I came across Jump Cutter https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jump-cutter/lmppdpldfpfdlipofacekcfleacbbncp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jump-cutter/lmppdp... which is an extension to speed up silences while keeping spoken audio at normal speed. You can customize it, but it's been an interesting experience, the audio is at an effective 1.9x speed while only being 1.4x during the spoken section. Screen readers have a place, but the value in screen readers for the non-visually impaired is limited to the text-to-speech function. After a certain point, the synthetic voices and physics make it hard to produce intelligible sounds even if your brain can process it faster. Certain sounds end up getting cut or the software starts skipping words and it not something you can fix for every scenario. https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/issues/131 https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/issues/131 an ongoing thread talking about how this can be mitigated. I also know that some visually impaired people get used to certain voices to the point where they can make at words at a higher speed using a specific voice compared to others. The robot voices easier to understand than the more human sounding ones. Getting to 3x is much much easier than you imagine, it will take less than an hour if you increase the speed by 0.2x every 15ish minutes. You get used to it really quickly. The human brain is pretty fantastic in that regard. I personally found that past 2.7x speed, even if I can understand the words, I can't comprehend new ideas and words fast enough for it to make sense and I end up having to pause. There definitely is a a point of diminishing returns, and for me it's around 2.6x, 2.7x. It depends on the lecturer cadence though. If you want simple emulation of navigating using a screen reader, navigating having disabled your mouse is a good starting point. NVDA is the gold standard for screen readers.

lioeters 4y ago

That reminds me when I learned how blind people use the screen reader, the setting for the voice can be at an incredibly fast speed, where the words turn into "bits" of sound. I know people who watch YouTube videos like that, and my brain cannot process spoken words so fast. It also reminds me of hip hop, some of those raps are like a machine gun of words that overload the brain. It's probably about personal preferences in "modes of thinking", visual, verbal, auditory, etc. I much prefer to read something than to watch a video or listen to audio, and can consume information the quickest.

BugsJustFindMe 4y ago
> my brain cannot process spoken words that fast Not at first. This is something that people train themselves to do gradually. For me it didn't take very long to get to 3x playback speed for audiobooks, which untrained people usually find incomprehensible, but I started out much slower and then increased the speed a little every day because I wanted to be able to listen to more books.
- lioeters 4y ago
  That's interesting to know. It makes sense, it's a listening skill that can be developed. I've always wanted to deepen my knowledge of web accessibility, and get more familiar with screen readers - but was afraid it might be too frustrating to navigate while listening to a voice, slow enough to understand. Now I know, it just takes practice. Thanks!
  - knaik94 4y ago
    Youtube videos with closed captions on are a nice way to ease into it. There's chrome extensions to increase the speed over the '2x' playback option youtube gives you. I personally don't enjoy podcasts at above 1.3x to 1.5x speed but when I am reading along with subtitles, I can increase the speed easily to 2.7x+. I don't think I did any specific practice. After a certain amount of minutes, at 1.5x speed, the cadence of lectures at high speed start to feel normal and going back to 1.0x speed feels slow, as if it was 0.7x speed. Sort of like an audio illusion. It reminds me of the feeling you get when you have been on a highway at a high speed for hours on a road trip. For whatever reason, my brain stops understanding how fast the "slow" speed of 20mph is is. So it feels extra slow even though relative to walking it's really fast. Recently I came across Jump Cutter https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jump-cutter/lmppdpldfpfdlipofacekcfleacbbncp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jump-cutter/lmppdp... which is an extension to speed up silences while keeping spoken audio at normal speed. You can customize it, but it's been an interesting experience, the audio is at an effective 1.9x speed while only being 1.4x during the spoken section. Screen readers have a place, but the value in screen readers for the non-visually impaired is limited to the text-to-speech function. After a certain point, the synthetic voices and physics make it hard to produce intelligible sounds even if your brain can process it faster. Certain sounds end up getting cut or the software starts skipping words and it not something you can fix for every scenario. https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/issues/131 https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/issues/131 an ongoing thread talking about how this can be mitigated. I also know that some visually impaired people get used to certain voices to the point where they can make at words at a higher speed using a specific voice compared to others. The robot voices easier to understand than the more human sounding ones. Getting to 3x is much much easier than you imagine, it will take less than an hour if you increase the speed by 0.2x every 15ish minutes. You get used to it really quickly. The human brain is pretty fantastic in that regard. I personally found that past 2.7x speed, even if I can understand the words, I can't comprehend new ideas and words fast enough for it to make sense and I end up having to pause. There definitely is a a point of diminishing returns, and for me it's around 2.6x, 2.7x. It depends on the lecturer cadence though. If you want simple emulation of navigating using a screen reader, navigating having disabled your mouse is a good starting point. NVDA is the gold standard for screen readers.