Re: Photoreading. Does it work?

[Gwern Branwen]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 6:05 PM, Logical-Entity <heaven....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone, my 2nd post for this group. Sorry about the other post,
> whereby I was perceived to be advertising about a product that asserts
> about IQ boost through listening to music.. I just wanted to discuss
> about some programs that were seem to be absurd and pseudo-science.
> But talking about pseudo-science, what do you guys think about
> photoreading?
>
> Photoreading claims that, you can actually unconsciously intake 25,000
> words per minute whilst having a steady focus on the 2 pages of a
> book. After you have photoread the book completely and put it into
> your long-term memory (subconcious), in order to bring it into your
> conscious awareness, you have to activate the book by skimming through
> the book that ideally attracts you. In my experience, I've been using
> photoreading since February of 2008 and I've haven't even gotten past
> the activation stage, but only did the photoreading process, whereby
> all the information just gone into my subconscious mind. However,
> there's another activation called spontaneous activation, which means
> that you will have a 'ah-ha' experience.. So yep, I've photoread my
> school text-books and I don't know If I've known these activations had
> occurred during classes.
>
> Besides that, do you believe that photoreading works? In wikipedia, it
> says that a NASA report has claimed that photoreading doesn't really
> work.. so I don't know. Can you take a mental snap shot just by
> flipping pages from the beginning to the end of a book and goes to
> your long-term memory, hence the information is scattered everywhere
> in your mind?

You seem like a rather credulous person.

Think about what it would imply if photo-reading were possible.

An average page has 11-20 words per line and around 50 lines; call it 600 words per page, and 1200 words for 2 pages. Each pair of pages is about a second or less, I understand, in photo-reading.

Is it plausible, keeping in mind the fact that the difference between many letters is very small and hard to see, and also keeping in mind the fact that human vision sucks (consider the blind sight and the absolute lack of fine detail in peripheral vision), for your eyes to focus and actually retain in any form more than 1200 words per second - or 120 words in a tenth of a second or 12 words every hundredth of a second... ?

It's not physically plausible with saccades (according to https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Saccade#Timing_and_Kinematics they are even the fastest movements your body can produce), to say nothing of long-established psychological results that the most the mind can absorb is a few bits or tens of bits a second at the absolute most implausible, and not the >7000* bits 2 pages could contain.

* ASCII requires the lower 7 bits to express most English characters. Charitably assuming that one knows the English word so well that one sees not individual characters but entire words, then 7 bits * 1200 words > 7000.

--
gwern

[Paul]

True photographic memory is very rare and I have doubts that the average person would be able to learn this skill. I've heard anecdotes about the use of high doses of racetams and other nootropics to develop photographic memory, but I believe there are much better places to direct your energy.

Paul

[Gaël DEEST]

> I've been using
> photoreading since February of 2008

It's fascinating just to think about what you could have learned by
actually *reading* the books you were barely staring at ;)

[Gaël DEEST]

> Think about what it would imply if photo-reading were possible.
>
> An average page has 11-20 words per line and around 50 lines; call it 600
> words per page, and 1200 words for 2 pages. Each pair of pages is about a
> second or less, I understand, in photo-reading.
>
> Is it plausible, keeping in mind the fact that the difference between many
> letters is very small and hard to see, and also keeping in mind the fact
> that human vision sucks (consider the blind sight and the absolute lack of
> fine detail in peripheral vision), for your eyes to focus and actually
> retain in any form more than 1200 words per second - or 120 words in a tenth
> of a second or 12 words every hundredth of a second... ?
>
> It's not physically plausible with saccades (according to
> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Saccade#Timing_and_Kinematics
> they are even the fastest movements your body can produce), to say nothing
> of long-established psychological results that the most the mind can absorb
> is a few bits or tens of bits a second at the absolute most implausible, and
> not the >7000* bits 2 pages could contain.
>
> * ASCII requires the lower 7 bits to express most English characters.
> Charitably assuming that one knows the English word so well that one sees
> not individual characters but entire words, then 7 bits * 1200 words > 7000.
>

Gwern's physiological arguments seem pretty convincing. I think there
also are cognitive / psychological reasons why photoreading is
unplausible.

"Reading" a book, especially a textbook, is not only a matter of
"seeing" words independently. Your mind also has to determine the
meaning of each word, detect if it's a noun, a verb, an adjective,
make sense of the syntax, and ultimately, of the semantical content.
It also must make connections between sentences, paragraphs, chapters,
in order to follow the story / understand the thesis of the author. In
the case of academic reading, especially in humanities, it should also
notice bits of information that may not be put in clear in the text
(such as the bias of the writer, his political leaning, the logical
fallacies he makes, etc.) Your "reading" may also require training
and/or deep concentration to be actually useful (eg. in mathematics.)

Clearly, I think photoreading is bullshit.

[jack nguyen]

I remember reading somewhere about paul scheele's (co creator of photoreading)  "colorful" reputation. I can't find the link now but let's just say it's not something I put a lot of faith in.

--
cheers,
jack
----------------------------------------
http://sites.google.com/site/eviljack
http://www.linkedin.com/in/eviljack

[Jonathan Toomim]

Reading speed is partially limited by the crowding effect.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0W-4RPD78S-5&_user=4420&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000059607&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4420&md5=450bec7ff51334a0f2b7d44dfcc6a2bc

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/visual_crowding_why_even_familiar_faces_are_difficult_to_spot_in_groups

If I show you a letter (say, a T) on a blank white page in your peripheral vision, you will have little or no trouble identifying it.  If I show you an L on a blank page, you can identify that too.  However, if I show you an L or a T flanked by two Ls, you won't be able to identify the central letter.  Crowding happens only in the periphery; in the fovea (the central portion of your vision), crowding does not occur.  When your eyes saccade to a place in a section of text, a certain number of letters will be uncrowded and identifiable.  The number of letters is called the uncrowded span.  The uncrowded span differs from person to person, but it's typically around 5 to 10 letters.  Uncrowded span is independent of letter size.  In order to identify words, you have to fixate on them for a few hundred milliseconds or so.  If you saccade every 333 ms and can see 10 letters per saccade (a generous estimate), that would produce a reading speed of 30 letters per second, or about 300 words per minute.  This is one limitation on reading speed.

A technique called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) is used to get around the saccade rate limitation.  In RSVP, words are displayed in series in one spot for a certain amount of time.  The duration determines the effective reading speed; a 100 ms display duration produces a theoretical reading rate of 600 words per minute, quite a bit faster than most people can read normally.  Unfortunately, when this is done, reading comprehension drops.  The main limitation on reading speed isn't how quickly you can do the visual processes involved in reading, but rather how quickly you can process the grammar and semantics of language.

Jonathan

[Ben]

I was starting to develop photographic memory while I was polyphasic
sleeping. I found that in that as I was laying down to prepare for
sleep, the thoughts of the last 4-6 hours would come through my mind
and I would be able to see faces and also settings with the most
amazing detail. I was also able to hold images in my head for a long
time and look at different parts of them in detail.

2009/4/19 Paul <plh...@gmail.com>:

[Shamanu999]

Can you use this "skill" also at daytime when widely awaken?

Ben schrieb:

[Ashirgo]

I have no doubt that an average person can learn to read 2000 words
per minute (as I did), but 25 000 just does not seem to be a
reasonable number.

[Paul]

I believe there's a distinction between speed reading and photographic memory. If one had excellent photographic memory, one could simply store the images of the pages and mentally read them at a later time (for example, during an exam).

[Gwern Branwen]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Paul <plh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I believe there's a distinction between speed reading and photographic
> memory. If one had excellent photographic memory, one could simply store the
> images of the pages and mentally read them at a later time (for example,
> during an exam).

Assuming photographic memory truly exists.
http://www.slate.com/id/2140685 is an interesting popular discussion.

--
gwern

[Ashirgo]

So, photographic memory does not exist. It is a relief ;)

[Ron Williams]

Actually, I knew a woman who claimed to have 'photographic memory' in
the classical sense. She was the wife of a member of the 'Prometheus
Club' (IQ > 160?), and who I will not embarrass by naming her if she
still lives, or him. She claimed to my face without a hint of a lie
that I could detect, and in all seriousness, that she used to simply
read the answers to examinations out of textbooks that she could see
open in front of her. Every examination was an 'open book' exam. She
always felt as if it was cheating, she said, however couldn't do
otherwise - that was how she could recall factual material from books.
It was either that or nothing.

Note that I didn't see her actually do this, as she was in the early
stages of Parkinson's at the time, and had lost the ability already, I
believe. I tactfully declined the offer of a demonstration made by her
husband as I detected the panic in her eyes. He clearly had seen it
done before many times (although also clearly not recently) and I
believe I witnessed a moment of realization between husband and wife
that still haunts me today.

You might think 'photographic memory' is a tremendous advantage, and
so it would be if all you want to do is reproduce exactly what someone
else has written. I think, though, that all such abilities may come
with a terrible cost, that the magical gift of confabulation that
gives birth to fantastical new forms may not be easy for such people.

[Ron Williams]

Sorry, 'Prometheus Society' - I am clearly not a member! :)