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Old 04-25-2016, 08:26 PM   #7
tomsem
Grand Sorcerer
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Posts: 6,955
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: USA
Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3
I can believe it is true when it comes to reading books (though even there, 'skimming' is often good enough to take in what is important).

But we digital readers have Spritz and (with some Kindle apps) Word Runner. These things make sure the fovea processes each word, at least.

I have been using Word Runner a fair amount of late and for some types of reading ('genre' fiction for example), I don't feel I'm missing anything (but then I wouldn't would I?). The time saved can be used to do a quick note summarizing what was just read, thus further reinforcing comprehension.

I've probably put in fewer than 40 hours thus far, so I don't really expect to have it perfected, but I find it worth exploring and playing with it. I hope Amazon will improve it (there is room for that) and bring it to iOS and even Kindle.

Spritz is probably slightly 'better', but I haven't played with it as much (on Android you can use it with reading apps that support TTS, on iOS you have to pick apps that integrate with it directly).

That said, I would not want to use it for everything I read, at least with the technologies I've tried so far.

But the basic problem of assimilating 'knowledge' quickly into human brains is a hard one, and something deserving of research dollars.

Note that Braille reading rates seem to max out for most people at around 200 w.p.m., but that may just be because it is not an efficient encoding system (character based). I can imagine subcutaneous 'sensory substitution' is potentially the fastest way to input text, or at least as fast as visual (there's been a lot of progress with it for replacing vision itself).
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