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reading speed

r.a

meat popsicle
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Jul 4, 2009
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496
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STFU
some people read at a speaking pace, while others can digest the information skimming their eyes past the words at a much faster speed.

does anyone know if there is a correlation between how fast one can read and their MBTI type?
 

INTJ123

HAHHAHHAH!
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Jun 20, 2009
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777
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ESFP
I doubt it. There might be a correlation between lingual/verbal intelligence and how fast you can read though. and from what I understand the infj is naturally inclined to have a high level of such intelligence.
 

bluebell

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does anyone know if there is a correlation between how fast one can read and their MBTI type?

Probably not. I think there was a thread about reading speed ages ago on INTPc and IIRC there was quite a wide variation in reading speeds. For example, I read very fast but my INTP ex is one of the slower readers I've ever come across.
 

entropie

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I am happy, if I can read you at all :D
 

veins

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If there's not much of a correlation between MBTI types and reading speed, is there a closer correlation involving the cognitive functions? Different types using different functions to take in the information and such. Or maybe there's a set of functions that are used to read and the differences in reading speed has to do with each individual type utilizing dominant, auxiliary, inferior, and such functions and whether or not certain functions are developed to partake in the activity.
 

Poki

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My wife reads very slow, but remembers everything after reading it once. I on the other hand read very fast, but only pick up bits and pieces. I dont focus on the details, just the basic concepts. If I need it later I know where to go, or where to start looking.
 

WoodsWoman

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778
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INFP
If anything has a bearing on it it might be Ne's read faster? Just thinking...
 

Alwar

The Architect
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I was thinking about ordering this book from Amazon on speed reading. Am hoping to increase my reading pace without sacrificing comprehension. The sheer amount of books and other literature I plan to read is overwhelming and it drives me nuts that there probably isn't enough time in one's life to do it. :(
 

Katsuni

Priestess Of Syrinx
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I'm able to mix it between the two extreemes; on one hand I can read at about 300wpm and read two lines at the same time and still make coherant sense out of them despite that it shouldn't work.

On the other hand, this provides little more than a basic concept and is difficult to remember. Going much slower, at about my own writing speed, around 100wpm, is far more accurate, as I have time to process every word individually, and make more sense of them as a whole.

The 'speed readers', if yeu actually check into how they do it, basically skip over most of the words and just latch onto things like names, and larger descriptive words. The tiny things like 'if' 'and' 'or' and such they pretty much breeze over since they rarely have any major impact upon the concept being displayed. This can, at times, lead to errors of understanding and judgement if they skip a word that doesn't look important, yet it is.

On the other hand, there are rare cases where someone gets idiot-savant syndrome (not a real syndrome just calling it that) where they basically end up being to perform certain tasks with mechanical like precision far beyond human capabilities normally would allow... but this doesn't translate into anything else of useful value. For example, I had one customer on the phone while I was working at a call center once, and she stated she was able to read over 1000wpm, and had even been dragged to some universities to proove it, and showed she actually DID read every single word individually. My eyes literally can't focus on individual words that quickly, so she's far beyond my own capabilities; apparantly her daughter had similar capacity but not quite as good. Most people would assume this to just be a tall tale, the thing is, these oddities do exist in nature as it's perfectly possible to have a very specialized mind which can just look at the entire page, and intake ALL the information in a much larger area at once, and still process it normally. Chances are, she's not reading individual words, but is in fact just looking at half the page at one time, and somehow is able to accept every word on the page at the same time, then it takes a few seconds to process the data.

Most of us could probably do something similar if we were capable of even getting that much information into our brains at the same time, however, most of us aren't able to actually focus on more than a very very tiny amount of text at a single time. Most of us don't even read a single large word at a time, but instead read it syllable by syllable. *IF* we could actually see more than just a tiny little section we focus on at a time, with anything other than peripheral vision, chances are we'd quickly grow used to being able to process larger amounts of data; most of our brains are CAPABLE of it, they just have never been given the ability to have that information thrown at them that quickly, most of it's discarded before it ever gets to the part of the brain which actually processes the information.

From the time we gain new information (like seeing a picture), the outside's thrown away, anything that isn't moving peripherally is tossed out, it's timestamped for when it was seen, compressed into a more useful form, and then trimmed a bit more of any excess which isn't deemed important. After viewing this information, it's then post-processed for memory, and sorted by the timestamp, missing this step or the previous one are the most common culprits for de ja vu. Low peripheral vision is rarely an issue with the eyes being capable of seeing that far, but moreso of the brain simply just discarding the information that far out of the range of vision before it's ever actually used.

In general though, personality type is quite different than brain type... for example, there are BOTH ENTP females, and ENTP males, despite that they think significantly differently, though some traits are shared. The brain's composition is significantly different here. There's also the fact that one can CHANGE their personality type through excessive effort and training... the hardwired basic functions of the brain aren't capable of being diverted in this manner short of major surgery, though it is possible to train the brain's functions to be more effecient at the tasks it's already capable of. There are strict limits however due to the brain's design, which often influence personality, but do not solely dictate it.
 

sculpting

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I read very, very fast. My 13 year old son does as well. I go nuts sitting with my ENTP friend when she tries to read as she is SO SLOW. Every single word I see-even from the corner of my eye-gets read. I cannot decide if I want to read a sign or not. They all just pop in my brain instantly. So being in a city with many signs can be very tiring.

Actually I very rarely catch the little words. I scan across whole chunks of text very rapidly, read words on multiple lines at the same time and recreate the context-potentially flawed-in my mind. I can read a 400 page novel in about three hours.

I have a visual defect called visual snow-my 13 year old does as well-basically a series of sparkles across my vision, likely caused by retinal noise-poor electronical filtering.

A neuroscientist who used to work with me said this spontanoeus optical activity is very normal and very well studied in fetal animals. The spontaneous retinal firing helps prune neurons and cause them to grow properly between the eye and the occipital lobe. It stops shortly after birth.

Except for whatever the reason, in our family it keeps going. Funny-like personality diffs-you dont notice till someone else says "no that isnt what I see..."

So maybe lots of sparkles leads to increased neuronal content thus faster reading time?

I do know I love going overseas. I cant understand what the words mean there, so they are just jumbles of letters, and so my brain is so much quieter.
 

Katsuni

Priestess Of Syrinx
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I read very, very fast. My 13 year old son does as well. I go nuts sitting with my ENTP friend when she tries to read as she is SO SLOW.

And therein we may have some proof of the types not matching, then again, the definition of "so slow" is at question here due to the fact that yeu may very well have an abnormally high rate of reading. If yeu're pushing well over 500wpm reading rate, then this really wouldn't neccesarily be that slow at all if she's still maintaining 250+, even though it'd seem like a crawl in comparison.
 

FDG

pathwise dependent
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I read very, very fast. My 13 year old son does as well. I go nuts sitting with my ENTP friend when she tries to read as she is SO SLOW. Every single word I see-even from the corner of my eye-gets read. I cannot decide if I want to read a sign or not. They all just pop in my brain instantly. So being in a city with many signs can be very tiring.

Actually I very rarely catch the little words. I scan across whole chunks of text very rapidly, read words on multiple lines at the same time and recreate the context-potentially flawed-in my mind. I can read a 400 page novel in about three hours.

Same here, sometimes it can even be disorienting.
 

wildcat

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some people read at a speaking pace, while others can digest the information skimming their eyes past the words at a much faster speed.

does anyone know if there is a correlation between how fast one can read and their MBTI type?
A thing you can read fast is not worth a reading.
A text that arrests you is worth a second reading.
 

CzeCze

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I think ENXPs might read fast because we're so impatient and we can swallow large chunks of info and then break them down internally? We dont' have to be precise just efficient. :D

When I read, especially if I really like what I'm reading, I get really absorbed and I fly through the pages - almost faster than I can 'picture' what's going on.

If I'm reading and impatient (or semi bored) I'll basically skim the pages or chunk the pages of the book so I can at least get the gist of what's going on.

I've been told I'm a fast reader by others.
 

alcea rosea

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I think ENXPs might read fast because we're so impatient and we can swallow large chunks of info and then break them down internally? We dont' have to be precise just efficient. :D

When I read, especially if I really like what I'm reading, I get really absorbed and I fly through the pages - almost faster than I can 'picture' what's going on.

If I'm reading and impatient (or semi bored) I'll basically skim the pages or chunk the pages of the book so I can at least get the gist of what's going on.

I've been told I'm a fast reader by others.

I'm like you CzeCze in this reading business. ;)
Impatient. Ne trait, I guess, as you wrote.
 

Randomnity

insert random title here
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I on the other hand read very fast, but only pick up bits and pieces. I dont focus on the details, just the basic concepts. If I need it later I know where to go, or where to start looking.
this is exactly me too.

edit: btw I think it may have more to do with practice (number of books read/lifetime) than Ne, since my Ne is not very high.
 

Laurie

Was E.laur
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I've always read very fast. I didn't even know I was reading fast until people tried to read over my shoulder and they were only half done with the page and I was turning the page. I never took speed reading or anything of the such. I used to skim more but I can read every word on a page and understand it and still read very fast.

I know people that I consider intelligent and well read who don't read fast. I've always wondered what it is.

When I'm reading out loud I turn the page before I finish speaking the words. Perhaps that is part of it, I process in my mind rather than process the words on the page?
 

thisGuy

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I read very, very fast. My 13 year old son does as well. I go nuts sitting with my ENTP friend when she tries to read as she is SO SLOW. Every single word I see-even from the corner of my eye-gets read. I cannot decide if I want to read a sign or not. They all just pop in my brain instantly. So being in a city with many signs can be very tiring.

Actually I very rarely catch the little words. I scan across whole chunks of text very rapidly, read words on multiple lines at the same time and recreate the context-potentially flawed-in my mind. I can read a 400 page novel in about three hours.

I do know I love going overseas. I cant understand what the words mean there, so they are just jumbles of letters, and so my brain is so much quieter.

i dont have visual snow.

but other than that, yeah...sometimes i catch myself reading license plates on cars...i will never remember them but for some reason i read EVERYTHING that my eyes can see

i think its Ne's fuel...Ne needs information from the outside...doesnt it
 
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