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Indirectly reading portions of text unconsciously

Valiant

Courage is immortality
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I have noticed a lot recently that I read things unconsciously.
I mean, I do not focus on reading a line, like I usually do.
In fact, it can be while I am focusing on reading another line,
and my unconscious mind has been reading the entire page already.
I do this a lot. Especially in the evenings when I feel the most awake and sort of quirky.
Don't get me wrong, it is not my attention that is drifting away reading other lines.
I get that sometimes, too, if I am distracted by something.
This crap is just creepy, sort of.


I don't realize this all the time, it is mostly when I think about something and pieces of information comes bubbling up after I have been reading a part of an article.
Now we are talking oddly specific stuff. Had it happening to me with a news article the other day, and then I knew it wasn't just me confusing things for something else or remembering wrong.
I have a 22" screen, and the article I read was in the dead center.
I later remembered the contents of a small article to the far right of the screen.
Went back and checked since I realized this half an hour later or so.
I never really directly read it. It's one of those women's columns that i'd not touch with a ten foot pole.
That's probably why it came floating up, since it wasn't really part of my mental habitat :D

Does this happen to anyone else?
Why does it happen? Physiological reasons? Psychological?
 

Valiant

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No one? Seriously?
Weird.
 

sculpting

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There are some cognitive explanations for peripheral vs focused vision and what your brain is perceiving. Typically your brain has high color, focused vision in the center and B&W fuzzy vision to the sides-if I recall correctly which is questionable!

Anyways I read text in chunks-like about three lines at a time. As I focus on one line I am already seeing words from the lines above and below it, so I sort of hop through paragraphs, catching every third word. Yeah, Ne, filling in the blanks. This is bad though as I miss details.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
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It would be nice to learn how to do that consciously... Wouldn't have to move eyes when reading a book, but I think it is way too unconscious to really work. Maybe if the text was some sort of a flow of consciousness it might work...
 

Valiant

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It would be nice to learn how to do that consciously... Wouldn't have to move eyes when reading a book, but I think it is way too unconscious to really work. Maybe if the text was some sort of a flow of consciousness it might work...

I know, it's disturbing to think about.
Are you doing this, too?
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
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Are you doing this, too?

I think everyone is. Sometime when reading I lose my concentration as some word from the next line pops up in my mind and kinda messes up the sentence I was reading...
 

Zoom

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If you ever learn to speed read it involves a method of "taking a picture" of the page as you get faster and faster at it. I didn't actually like learning how to do it, so I stopped - it takes some of the fun out of reading.
 

yvonne

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happens to me too sometimes. i've never though anything of it, though. i just figure i either guess what's coming, or have glanced at it before without really registering. (glance, continue reading and sort of guess what's in the middle... does this make sense?)

also i usually read in chunks anyway...
 

Lizbot

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I've only just noticed this myself, and it seems to have developed from a compulsion to read absolutely everything. I do it with the books I am reading, billboards, chalkboards, newspapers, etc. It slightly explains the superfluous information in my brain and the odd looks I get from people on public transportation. It appears I've been reading their newspapers and what not from across the way.

I think my ability/need to read as such is psychological though. It was once an unconscious compulsion, and I've only just begun to notice it more and more.
 

Venom

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If you ever learn to speed read it involves a method of "taking a picture" of the page as you get faster and faster at it. I didn't actually like learning how to do it, so I stopped - it takes some of the fun out of reading.

I have noticed a lot recently that I read things unconsciously.
I mean, I do not focus on reading a line, like I usually do.
In fact, it can be while I am focusing on reading another line,
and my unconscious mind has been reading the entire page already.
I do this a lot. Especially in the evenings when I feel the most awake and sort of quirky.
Don't get me wrong, it is not my attention that is drifting away reading other lines.
I get that sometimes, too, if I am distracted by something.
This crap is just creepy, sort of.


I don't realize this all the time, it is mostly when I think about something and pieces of information comes bubbling up after I have been reading a part of an article.
Now we are talking oddly specific stuff. Had it happening to me with a news article the other day, and then I knew it wasn't just me confusing things for something else or remembering wrong.
I have a 22" screen, and the article I read was in the dead center.
I later remembered the contents of a small article to the far right of the screen.
Went back and checked since I realized this half an hour later or so.
I never really directly read it. It's one of those women's columns that i'd not touch with a ten foot pole.
That's probably why it came floating up, since it wasn't really part of my mental habitat :D

Does this happen to anyone else?
Why does it happen? Physiological reasons? Psychological?

I "learned how" to speed read from some books (ironic i guess). I would say what YLJ describes is more like autistic savants that can read a page a second by scanning. They seem to have a direct access to their memory, but they cant really process what they've read/remembered.
 
T

ThatGirl

Guest
I realized a while ago that I read as many lines are in my field of vision. The average is three depending how far away I hold the book.

It isn't so much that I am reading them, as it is I am recognizing the words and how they relate to the actual sentence I am reading.

Just general association stuff, but I have noticed it gives me a broader understanding of the content.
 
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