dwc@hou2b.UUCP (D.CHEN) (06/15/85)
it sounds like there are several things the "mind" must do to read. keeping track of the current and next line is certainly one of them it also sounds as if the lines could be right justified as long as it is not also right justified. but all this could be solved by using a bookmark or something. i took a psycholinguistics course once and the professor did an interesting experiment with us once. we read some text that had been right justified using some algorithm that put the necessary spaces between the words uniformly and an algorithm that grouped phrases together and put spaces uniformly around phrases. it turned out that our reading speed and comprehension was significantly greater (in the statistical sense) when the phrases were grouped together. this makes sense but its nice to see that common sense can be used for practical applications. danny chen ihnp4!hou2b!dwc
dwc@hou2b.UUCP (D.CHEN) (06/15/85)
it sounds like there are several things the "mind" must do to read. keeping track of the current and next line is certainly one of them it also sounds as if the lines could be right justified as long as it is not also right justified. but all this could be solved by using ^^^^^ (i mean left) a bookmark or something. i took a psycholinguistics course once and the professor did an interesting experiment with us once. we read some text that had been right justified using some algorithm that put the necessary spaces between the words uniformly and an algorithm that grouped phrases together and put spaces uniformly around phrases. it turned out that our reading speed and comprehension was significantly greater (in the statistical sense) when the phrases were grouped together. this makes sense but its nice to see that common sense can be used for practical applications. danny chen ihnp4!hou2b!dwc
ccrbrian@ucdavis.UUCP (Brian Reilly) (06/18/85)
> i took a psycholinguistics course once and the professor did an interesting > experiment with us once. we read some text that had been right justified > using some algorithm that put the necessary spaces between the words > uniformly and an algorithm that grouped phrases together and put spaces > uniformly around phrases. it turned out that our reading speed and > comprehension was significantly greater (in the statistical sense) when > the phrases were grouped together. this makes sense but its nice to > see that common sense can be used for practical applications. > > danny chen > ihnp4!hou2b!dwc I taught speed reading classes for a reading and study skills company at a number of colleges, and the goal of the course was to get people to read in phrases, rather than one word at a time. Because the number of fixations the eye can make in a minute is limited ( 1/5 sec. per fixation and 1/30 sec. between fixations ), one way to increase your reading rate is to see more words each time your eyes make a stop. Another way to increase your rate is to skip some of the words :-). I think it would be interesting if books were typeset using a method similar to the one you suggest. I am almost finished writing a booklet for a speed reading course, and I tried to use something similar to grouping the words in phrases on a line. It is actually two lines at but it is difficult like possible to read the same time, to organize the text this. If anyone has a formatting program that does this, I am interested. However, I abandoned the idea of printing my booklet like this because the people who read it did not seem to like the text in that format as much as I anticipated. When presented with several different formats, people usually indicate that the two-line phrase method is quite readable. Maybe this is not true for longer sections, but I think it can be effective in advertisements - if someone can read it faster, they should understand it more easily and if they are puzzled, they will likely re-read it to figure out what it is that is making it puzzling. Anyone else think this is a better way to read? Or is anyone interested in a free booklet on reading and study skills? (It isn't quite done, but will be before June 30th.) Brian Reilly -- ~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= Brian Reilly Davis, CA 95616 U.C. Davis Computer Center ucbvax!ucdavis!deneb!ccrbrian
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (06/19/85)
>> i took a psycholinguistics course once and the professor did an interesting >> experiment with us once. we read some text that had been right justified >> using some algorithm that put the necessary spaces between the words >> uniformly and an algorithm that grouped phrases together and put spaces >> uniformly around phrases. it turned out that our reading speed and >> comprehension was significantly greater (in the statistical sense) when >> the phrases were grouped together. this makes sense but its nice to >> see that common sense can be used for practical applications. >> >> danny chen >> ihnp4!hou2b!dwc >I think it would be interesting if books were typeset using a method >similar to the one you suggest. I am almost finished writing a booklet >for a speed reading course, and I tried to use something similar to >grouping the words in phrases on a line. > >It is actually two lines at but it is difficult like >possible to read the same time, to organize the text this. > >Anyone else think this is a better way to read? Or is anyone >interested in a free booklet on reading and study skills? (It isn't >quite done, but will be before June 30th.) > > Brian Reilly Both these typographical tricks have been suggested, the first by North and Jenkins (J.Applied Psychol., 1951, 35, 225-228), the second by Andrews (Tex. Outlook, 1949, 33, 20-21). They and a couple of other phrase-based typographies were studied by Coleman and Taylor (my wife, not me) (J. Applied Psychology, 1961, 45, 262-267). They found that in reading passages, conventional typography was faster but not significantly better in comprehension. But in a tachistoscope (rapid flash presentation) both the styles suggested in the Chen and Reilly notes (spaced and square-span) were better than conventional. They suggest that if people were trained to read these typographies, they might have significant advantages. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt