I've trained voice actors for over 20 years, and the visual cortex being constantly activated as you are forced to stare at the words is a major problem for mos

I've trained voice actors for over 20 years, and the visual cortex being constantly activated as you are forced to stare at the words is a major problem for most actors. We have a variety of techniques for helping with this, but the one that works the best is "micro memorization": take a single sound group (linguistically, a speech chunk) of 2-6 words and repeat them with eyes closed. Anything longer and a small bit of anxiety ("am I remembering the words correctly?") creeps in and destroys naturalism. Eventually, the brain becomes attenuated to sharing meaning, not just words, and that becomes a habit that can be used when warming up a script you've never seen before. Also, just as a single multi-syllabic word follows a pitch and stress pattern, so do individual speech chunks. Speaking each chunk in the most natural /default pattern is difficult to learn to let happen naturally, and this exercise also builds skill in that area.