Research: The Eyes Have It (2)

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Buzan also points out that we are often guilty of back-skipping or returning to what we have already read for fear that we missed something important.

However, given the tremendous amount of redundant information that we receive, the chance of missing something is rather slim. We read not only by recognizing individual words but also by utilizing the context of the words.

For example, we may not know the meaning of a particular word but may be able to infer its meaning by how it is used in the sentence.

An interesting study demonstrating this context effect in the perception of speech was conducted by Warren & Warren (1970). Subjects were presented with sentences such as "It was found that the *eel was on the axle", "It was found that the *eel was on the shoe", "It was found that the "eel was on the orange", and "It was found that the "eel was on the table".

In each instance the * was replaced by non-speech. While subjects all were presented with the word "eel", they reported hearing the word "wheel" in the first sentence, "heel" in the second sentence, "peel" in the third sentence and "meal" in the fourth sentence. In other words, they used context rather than decoding the actual word presented to comprehend the sentences.

During rapid reading it would appear that, since we chunk greater items (phrases rather than individual words), emphasis would be more on context rather than the individual word.

The results of the above study suggest that even if a word was presented "wrong", we would read it "right". This would suggest that back-skipping would be quite unlikely to point out something important that we had missed. In addition, it appears that information critical to words in isolation, such as the "wh" in "wheel", becomes redundant when the word is read in context.

It was brought up in this section, that, when one reads slowly, the brain wanders. This may be due to the fact that, when words are read slowly, they no longer resemble speech and the reader or listener loses interest and concentration.

A recent study investigating the effects of rapid reading on first-grade children was conducted by Breznitz (1988).

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