Scientific American Article: Screen vs. Paper

[TGS]

Originally Posted by Lbooker

You see a personal attack, where I see my lucid contempt for the intellect of 99.99 % of humanity.
If you want a (mild) personal attack, here is one : for someone whose "study of psychology began in the mid 60's", your knowledge of current research in the field appears mediocre. Your attitude towards the science sounds subjective, i.e. unscientific.

There's a bit "kettle calling the pot black-arsed" there isn't there, since you quote names from the 60s to provide support for your position, then harangue kennyc for not being up to date with current research. Not that kennyc doesn't often need a good haranguing, (and now I'm being polite), but at least do it from firm ground.

[kennyc]

Hey, I'm just looking for backup concerning the part I highlighted.

....but it has been repeatedly proven that paper books, especially because pages are in 3 dimensions, take advantage of our spatial memory, thus helping us better remember what we read. The screen that refreshes when turning pages also confuses the brain and diminishes the memorization of the last read lines

Always looking to learn.

Firmament of the heavens eh, TGS

[FacebookVirus]

Originally Posted by kennyc

All I can say to that is that you have no clue about a number of things, one being me, another being science and a third being human interaction. Oh and four, you still haven't provided any proof of claims as I requested. So your knowledge of the current topic of discussion appears to be non-existant.

I'd suggest you start with re-reading the article linked in post #1.
(or the yahoo link in post #16)

Maybe we should assume he's reading from a screen and therefore needs more time to process the information.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Lbooker

...but it has been repeatedly proven that paper books, especially because pages are in 3 dimensions, take advantage of our spatial memory, thus helping us better remember what we read. The screen that refreshes when turning pages also confuses the brain and diminishes the memorization of the last read lines.

I've been reading on e-ink screens for about 2 years now, but I can't say I have this problem. I don't remember anything better or worse compared to reading a book; I only read a bit faster, because the "print" is better and (on the Paperwhite or other front-lit reader) the page can be brighter.

The only thing I CAN'T obviously do with an e-reader is remember WHERE I read something if I need to look for it. In a book, I could say something like: "I read it over here, somewhere", and then open the book at around 25% or so. When using an e-reader, I'd have to take a look at the page number (seeing 472), and then jump to "page" 120, and after that, start flipping back and forth.

In a real book, this is much faster. Therefore, if studying something and needing more than one book, I either prefer paper books, or a computer if the information is electronic. I won't ever use an e-reader or tablet for that, because I'd need to have a device per book I'm using.

[FacebookVirus]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The only thing I CAN'T obviously do with an e-reader is remember WHERE I read something if I need to look for it. In a book, I could say something like: "I read it over here, somewhere", and then open the book at around 25% or so. When using an e-reader, I'd have to take a look at the page number (seeing 472), and then jump to "page" 120, and after that, start flipping back and forth.

This is particularly true with pbooks, in my experience. I've frequently been able to remember not only what I've read but where on the pages the passage is located.

That's obviously not there with ebooks, but with Amazon's MyClippings file all I need do is highlight the passage. I can keep up with many more passages this way than with pbooks especially with an aging brain.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I've been reading on e-ink screens for about 2 years now, but I can't say I have this problem. I don't remember anything better or worse compared to reading a book; I only read a bit faster, because the "print" is better and (on the Paperwhite or other front-lit reader) the page can be brighter.

The only thing I CAN'T obviously do with an e-reader is remember WHERE I read something if I need to look for it. In a book, I could say something like: "I read it over here, somewhere", and then open the book at around 25% or so. When using an e-reader, I'd have to take a look at the page number (seeing 472), and then jump to "page" 120, and after that, start flipping back and forth.

In a real book, this is much faster. Therefore, if studying something and needing more than one book, I either prefer paper books, or a computer if the information is electronic. I won't ever use an e-reader or tablet for that, because I'd need to have a device per book I'm using.

The thing you can do with ebooks though is search for words, much easier than in a print book. Certainly not as easy to 'browse through' though.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by FacebookVirus

...where on the pages the passage is located.

With me, this sort of memory is very strong. I don't often remember things verbatim after reading them, but I can recall them because of remembering where I read them, or what search terms I used to find them.

When I was in school, I have sometimes answered an exam question like this:

- History: "Not enough time to explain. See Textbook, Page 175, three quarters down the page."
- Math: "Not enough time to complete calculation. Use formula <formula here> and technique described on page 241."

Sometimes a teacher reacted like: "You serious mate? This gets you nothing." Others said: "Hm... obviously you knew what needed to be done. Let's award some of the points."

Better than just leaving the question blank and be sure to get nothing.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Lbooker

I am tired of trying to help lazy/illiterate/subjective people. I already provided two names. Try and do your own research, we will see if you can spend hours successfully working against your unscientific/misinformed biases.

I'm sure you think you made a point, but you provided two names for research in the 1960's stating that back-lit screens lower brain activity and then claimed that:

it has been repeatedly proven that paper books, especially because pages are in 3 dimensions, take advantage of our spatial memory, thus helping us better remember what we read. The screen that refreshes when turning pages also confuses the brain and diminishes the memorization of the last read lines.

I don't see the connection between the effect that 1960's back-lit screens had on brain activity and a comparison between reading on eink and reading on paper.

As I looked for research showing that back-lit screens lower brain activity, I found this article:

Subjective Impressions Do Not Mirror Online Reading Effort: Concurrent EEG-Eyetracking Evidence from the Reading of Books and Digital Media

Abstract

In the rapidly changing circumstances of our increasingly digital world, reading is also becoming an increasingly digital experience: electronic books (e-books) are now outselling print books in the United States and the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, many readers still view e-books as less readable than print books. The present study thus used combined EEG and eyetracking measures in order to test whether reading from digital media requires higher cognitive effort than reading conventional books. Young and elderly adults read short texts on three different reading devices: a paper page, an e-reader and a tablet computer and answered comprehension questions about them while their eye movements and EEG were recorded. The results of a debriefing questionnaire replicated previous findings in that participants overwhelmingly chose the paper page over the two electronic devices as their preferred reading medium. Online measures, by contrast, showed shorter mean fixation durations and lower EEG theta band voltage density – known to covary with memory encoding and retrieval – for the older adults when reading from a tablet computer in comparison to the other two devices. Young adults showed comparable fixation durations and theta activity for all three devices. Comprehension accuracy did not differ across the three media for either group. We argue that these results can be explained in terms of the better text discriminability (higher contrast) produced by the backlit display of the tablet computer. Contrast sensitivity decreases with age and degraded contrast conditions lead to longer reading times, thus supporting the conclusion that older readers may benefit particularly from the enhanced contrast of the tablet. Our findings thus indicate that people's subjective evaluation of digital reading media must be dissociated from the cognitive and neural effort expended in online information processing while reading from such devices.

The whole article is available here.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Lbooker

You see a personal attack, where I see my lucid contempt for the intellect of 99.99 % of humanity.
If you want a (mild) personal attack, here is one : for someone whose "study of psychology began in the mid 60's", your knowledge of current research in the field appears mediocre. Your attitude towards the science sounds subjective, i.e. unscientific.

Isn't life a bit lonely when you are lucidly contemptuous of 99.99% of humanity?

Helen

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I'm sure you think you made a point, but you provided two names for research in the 1960's stating that back-lit screens lower brain activity and then claimed that:

I don't see the connection between the effect that 1960's back-lit screens had on brain activity and a comparison between reading on eink and reading on paper.

As I looked for research showing that back-lit screens lower brain activity, I found this article:


The whole article is available here.

Excellent link/paper. Thanks!

From the conclusion:

.....

To conclude, the present findings provide no evidence to support the assumption that online reading effort increases when people read on digital devices as opposed to paper. To the contrary, they suggest that digital media may even provide advantageous reading conditions under certain circumstances, notably when they provide improved discriminability for older readers. Of course, this is a only a first result that will require corroboration and further investigation in future research (e.g. by testing whether it extends to more prolonged periods of reading on a particular device). Nevertheless, our data show a robust dissociation between two separate online measures of reading effort - fixation durations and EEG theta band activity - on the one hand and subjective impressions of pleasantness of reading and readability on the other. This suggests that the overwhelming public opinion that digital reading media, though convenient, reduce the pleasure of reading is a cultural rather than a cognitive phenomenon. From this perspective, the subjective ratings of our participants (and those in previous studies) may be viewed as attitudes within a period of cultural change.
....

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Isn't life a bit lonely when you are lucidly contemptuous of 99.99% of humanity?

Helen

And here I thought the 1% had it tough.

[Katsunami]

How one reads is greatly affected by the medium one is using.

Using the "wrong" medium can make reading very uncomfortable.

For example:
- Give me an A4 page over a tablet any day. (If the stuff I need to read fits on one page.)
- Give me a tablet over a computer if I need to read a PDF from start to finish. (Because it's more comfortable than sitting in front of a computer, and most e-readers are crap to read PDF's on.)
- Give me an e-reader if I need to read just text (because it's smaller and lighter than most tablets, and can be read in bright light.)
- Give me paper books I need to use 10 at once and must flip back and forth to different passages.
- I definitely want a computer (or at least a notebook) if I need to use 10 PDF's and some websites at the same time.
- I'll take a paperback over a badly formatted e-book.
- I'll take a hardback over a paperback if the book is a "keeper" that I want in my bookcase forever.
- I'll take a (well-formatted!) e-book over a hardback if the hardback weighs two pounds, and I'll take the e-book over the paperback if the print in the hardback is small or bad.

[kennyc]

Katsunami's hierarchy of needs.

[Katsunami]

You may laugh at that post, but have you ever tried doing some research, using 10-20 PDF's or so on a tablet? Try it. If you still have hair now, you won't have after you're done. Try to read a 250 page PDF at work, while sitting at a computer... no fun either.

I'm dead serious. If you read stuff using the wrong medium, you're going to be very uncomfortable. (Reading PDF's and long website articles is the only reason for me to buy a tablet.)

[FacebookVirus]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Isn't life a bit lonely when you are lucidly contemptuous of 99.99% of humanity?

Helen

The consolation is getting to pretend the usual rules are for everyone else, certainly not him.