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From: es@sinix.UUCP (Dr. Sanio)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Humans considered as computing machines [was: Portable Unix boxes]
Message-ID: <1079@athen.sinix.UUCP>
Date: 15 Mar 90 18:26:11 GMT
References: <3296@trantor.harris-atd.com> <3944@uceng.UC.EDU> <790@dgis.dtic.dla.mil> <1620@argus.UUCP>
Reply-To: es@athen.UUCP (Dr. Sanio)
Organization: Siemens AG, DI ST SP4, Munich
Lines: 26

In article <1620@argus.UUCP> ken@argus.UUCP (Kenneth Ng) writes:
>In article <790@dgis.dtic.dla.mil>, jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon) writes:
>: Can you read text at 9600 baud?
>
>Not only do I read at 9600 baud, I used to spell check at 9600 baud.  I 
>[.....]
Without any showyness intended, I can back that at least to a certain amount.
With some training, you can get used to read lines, even paragraphs as a whole
(similarly as every adult reader reads words, not letters), thus highly in-
creasing your reading speed. Reading a book that way, it's well possible to
read 2 pages within 3 seconds (2000 cps or 16000 baud - no stop or parity).

But, there is one important condition: the text  m u s t  n o t  require any
intellectual effort of comprehension. If so, your reading rate may drop 
down to one page per hour or even less (take a text of Husserl, for example).

I don't know where the limits for fast reading are (there should be some).
I achieved the above speed on reading entertaining literature in my native
language (German). In English, it's hard for me to meet a quarter of it -
even if the text doesn't touch the limits of my vocabulary.


>-- 
>Kenneth Ng: Post office: NJIT - CCCC, Newark New Jersey  07102

regards, es