Speed reading

[panacea]

the brain only handles 2 images at one time, even if it seems like one animated sequence it isn't
you can verify this by picturing images large, detailed, in 3d, and the same size as each other.
for example make an ant the same size as an airplane, both should be about the size of a water melon in your hands, but in your imagination
then try to memorize a random list of words like this, connect 2 at a time, make them touch or penetrate eachother and focus on seeing them touch or pierce for about 6 seconds each time

ant
airplane

airplane
cat

cat
dog

dog
bullet

bullet
office chair

office chair
medicine pill

medicine pill
eggshell

eggshell
jeep



you can keep doing this for a pretty long time and, in theory, if you connect them well, simply seeing the same image of 'ant', should now spontaneously render the image of the airplane in your mind. then focus on the airplane, and a cat should appear, and so on.

[RRM]

Nice

[Mr. PC]

Hmm, so how can we test this theory? What if we try this,

Nose - book - umbrella

umbrella - bike - orange

orange - salmon - shoe

shoe - binocular - aardvark

Does doing the same think with this list, grouped in three, cause the second and third image to be evoked by the first? Or is it even possibly to imagine 3 images at a time? I'm finding, true to panacea's theory, that when I try to imagine 3 images, it's just my mind skipping quickly between the 3. I'm curious what others' experience is.

[panacea]

everything in our universe works on the principle of stimulus>response
that is two things (a stimulus and a response)
our brain naturally evolved to think in the most efficient manner to understand the world around us..
since our brain can work very fast, it sometimes seems as though many things are passing through our attention at one time..
in order to effectively encode information into memory, we need to understand that at the fundamental level, things are happening on the stimulus>response level..
which is one thing (a stimulus) connected to another. for example if we feel hunger, food might come to our imagination.. if we touch a hot pan, our hand will jerk back. in the same way, if see the equation 2+2, the answer 4 will 'respond' to that stimulus.

we have a limited 'space' in our imagination at any given time - for effectiveness's sake, we can maximize the memory and learning processes by connecting 2 objects at a time, each taking up roughly half of our 'imagination space'. We could, for example, imagine 10 objects instead of 2, at the same time, simply by making them smaller (representing 10% of the imagination space each), however this is much less effective, as attention is being divided more, and you are essentially trying to 'memorize too quickly'.

[waiwilliams]

Speed reading is pretty much useless.

This isn't true...speed reading is an important part of academia

[Aytundra]

Speed reading is pretty much useless.

This isn't true...speed reading is an important part of academia

I think clear and succinct writing is also an important part of academia.

[Aytundra]

Sometimes it is not about your poor reading speed.
Poor writing styles may decrease reading speeds.
I find, 1 author texts are much more prone to poor writing style than multi-author texts.
I find it faster to read a text edited by multiple editors.

[summerdays]

Not sure if you had this experience, but as a child I was discouraged from 'underlining' every line with a pencil as I read (just tracing an invisible line, not actually making a mark on the paper). But I read recently that this actually helps us read fater and retain what we've read. I can't remember the article but I'll do a search and post it here.

To be honest, I've been struggling with concentration while reading lately. I'm afriad it has to do with spending so much time reading online, which is a much more frenetic process. I'm trying to train my eyes to re-focus on reading normal books again. Really troubling, actually.

[Novidez]

This subject always interested me a lot (since I am a slow pace reader)

Ramon Campayo has two great books regarding this, specially one that focus more on this subject. He is currently the undefeated record holder in speed memory and long-term memory and has broken fifteen world records, performing such feats as memorizing a 30-digit binary number in one second and memorizing 23,200 words in 72 hours.
To memorize fast, you need to read fast.

Not sure if you had this experience, but as a child I was discouraged from 'underlining' every line with a pencil as I read (just tracing an invisible line, not actually making a mark on the paper). But I read recently that this actually helps us read fater and retain what we've read. I can't remember the article but I'll do a search and post it here.

Exactly! He criticizes a lot the unnatural way we are taught to read at school. Children spontaneously use their fingers to read. And the most children start to hate reading because it is really exhausting and not enthusiastic at all.

Basically, the main thing is to develop a more open wide periphal vision in order to see the whole, not fragment by fragment (that's what our eyes are mainly supposed to be used after all). Not to mention to eliminate subvocalization, of course.

These a two simple tools that I found on the Internet:
http://www.spreeder.com/
http://lecturarapida-1090.appspot.com/

But, if you want some serious business, download this program (this is the full version of it). Really amazing, no joke.
Maybe some people will find it useless, but since I have some problems on focusing, this has helped me a ton. And I have been enjoying reading much more now