[extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed

[Acy James Stapp]

I'm a fairly fast reader at ~1000+ wpm with fairly good
comprehension on fiction and subjects I'm already acquanted
with, and ~500 wpm on hard nonfiction. I've found that reading 
the same thing over and over until I'm quite bored with it 
produces massive gains in retention although it hardly affects 
comprehension. Typically this takes two or three times (make
sure you sleep in the interim). But, improving retention has 
very good benefits. I can build upon the information and use
it much more readily. Most of my problems stem from not
remembering the details of what I've read even though I 
understood it at the time, and rereading is a powerful 
technique for improving retention and recall.

I'm sure that I could double my reading efficiency with some
aids but simply rereading makes a tremendous difference.
Taking notes would probably make a big difference as well,
but I'm not quite that organized.

Acy Stapp

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robert J.
Bradbury
Sent: Wednesday, 21 January, 2004 17:08
To: Extropy Chat
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed



Harvey's comments a week or two ago got me to thinking about
how one can use technology available now for self-improvement,
greater time efficiency, greater comprehension or retention, etc.

Normally humans speaking quickly manage ~300 words/min (wpm), though
the Guinness Book of Records (1995) reports this can be pushed
to ~600 wpm.  Normal reading speed is perhaps 240 wpm (though
this was from the net, not the GBoR so ByrBwr).  I have heard
that listening speed can be up to 3x speaking speed and that
at one point there were tape recorders that could perform
this kind of compression for playback of recordings.

Some googling turned up this source:

> Vortex Machine Assisted Reading Software

  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/vortex.html  (Main information page)
  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/corn_use.html  Download the demo software
  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/cornix.html  (check out the demo)

** Note the URLs may no longer be valid -- one would have to use
** the Wayback Machine most likely to track down the pages.

> "The machine assisted reading software that allows you to read at up
to
> 2000 words per minute in fonts as large as 1000 points. Vortex will
suck
> the text out of your Windows software program and display it as you
want
> to see it! You choose the font, font size, speed of display, where to
> start and what colors you want the text."

Now, speed reading is great (though I would question the 2000 wpm number
as another source said only 1000 wpm -- which is closer to high speed
listening capabilities).  It would be interesting to compare speed
vs. comprehension at these accelerated rates in the visual and auditory
input channels.  Furthermore to look at what happens if you combine
the channels (a) at the same time (hearing what you are seeing) or
(b) separate the channels (what you hear is different from what you
see).

Now with software of this nature one begins to ask if this could be
used to "compress" education times (either in children who still
have extremely plastic brains or adults in college)?

But in any case it looks to me like the methods and perhaps even the
tools may exist for Harvey to get twice as much news in 1/2 to 1/3
the time or 2-3x the news in the same amount of time.

This would actually make a great software product for professionals
such as market analysts, lawyers, scientists, etc. who have to spend
much of their time absorbing information.

Robert



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