[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4cast #377: Reading speed

Wed Mar 19 10:30:16 EDT 2014

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OPLIN 4Cast

OPLIN 4cast #377: Reading speed
March 19th, 2014

Spritz appSeveral months ago, the /4cast/ looked at the possibility 
<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/?p=4078> that shorter lines of text 
delivered on digital devices could be easier to read, especially for 
those who have problems reading paper-printed text. Earlier this month, 
a startup called Spritz got a lot of media attention for pushing this 
concept to the limit, marketing a technology that presents readers with 
one word at a time up to 1,000 words per minute. As it happens, this 
idea - known as rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) - is not new and 
has been available for some time to users of mobile devices through a 
number of speed-reading apps 
<http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-apps-could-triple-your-reading-speed-180949945/>, 
but Spritz' media blitz unleashed a host of interesting articles about 
reading in general.

  * Speed-reader startup Spritz closing $3.5M seed
    <http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/10/spritz-seed/> (TechCrunch/Natasha
    Lomas) "$1 million of the seed was raised earlier, when the company
    was known as Spritz Technology LLC (it's now Spritz Technology Inc),
    but the rest of the round - $2.54 million - is committed and due to
    be closed within a couple of weeks, TechCrunch has learned. Spritz's
    patent-pending technology streams text at readers, one speedy word
    at a time, to cut down the time the reader's eye has to spend moving
    from word to word - letting them consume text more quickly (or
    that's the theory). To aid the reading process, Spritz aligns words
    using what it refers to as an 'optimal recognition point method'
    which presents the portion of the word that apparently allows the
    reader to most quickly recognize it, so the next word can be
    speedily pushed out."
  * Am I reading this right?
    <http://jhenderson.org/vclab/Blog/Entries/2014/3/7_Am_I_Reading_This_Right.html>
    (Henderson Blog/John M. Henderson) "So Spritz sounds great, and even
    somewhat scientific. But can you really read a novel in 90 minutes
    with full comprehension? Well, like most things that seem too good
    to be true, the answer unfortunately is no. The research in the
    1970s showed convincingly that although people can read using RSVP
    at normal reading rates, comprehension and memory for text falls as
    RSVP speeds increase, and the problem gets worse for paragraphs
    compared to single sentences. One of the biggest problems is that
    there just isn't enough time to put the meaning together and store
    it in memory (what psychologists call 'consolidation')."
  * New speed-reading apps are devilish devices
    <http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-07/new-speed-reading-apps-are-devilish-devices>
    (Bloomberg View/Leonid Bershidsky) "A college-level reader can
    process written data in five 'gears,' Ronald Carver, the University
    of Missouri professor and reading science enthusiast, wrote
    <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40016440?uid=3738936&uid=2134&uid=380366123&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=380366113&uid=60&sid=21103606139957>
    back in 1992. These are memorizing, learning, 'rauding,' skimming
    and scanning. The lowest gear, meant for the best retention of
    facts, names, dates and specific turns of phrase, runs at less than
    150 words a minute. The highest, used to find a target word within a
    long text, allows one to process 600 words per minute. 'Rauding,' at
    300 words per minute, is our 'cruising' speed. The term is an
    amalgam of 'reading' and 'auditing.' It is roughly equivalent to our
    listening comprehension speed."
  * Don't mock speed-reading apps. They are life-changing.
    <http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/03/spritz_spreeder_rsvp_technology_speed_reading_apps_are_amazing.html>
    (Slate Future Tense/Jim Pagels) "While I'm an unabashed fan of this
    technology, RSVP has its detractors, who claim that these kinds of
    applications increase reading speeds at the expense of
    comprehension. They argue that users are unable to scan around the
    entire page or take moments to dwell on particular passages that
    might merit deeper contemplation. But an RSVP user can simply hit
    pause or even go back to the original tab if he needs a moment to
    think or wants to give something a second glance, both of which I do
    quite frequently. During my RSVP experience, I haven't noticed any
    decline in comprehension; if anything, I'm more focused on the
    material, because I know I can't allow my mind to wander or I'll
    lose my place, similar to how a runner on a treadmill can't just
    stop whenever they get tired."

*/Blink fact:/*

If you're ready for some hard science, this article 
<http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn_a_00551> from the 
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience explains the "attentional blink," 
"...a deficit in conscious perception of the second of two targets 
[words] if it follows the first within 200-500 msec."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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