Current Events > Guy on Criminal Minds "has an IQ of 187 and can read 20,000 wpm"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Is this even possible? I can type 100 wpm if I'm lucky. So he can read 200 times faster than I can type? Hmm....well, it is just TV obviously, but little things like this are usually meant to be at least attainable in the real world.

It's not a challenge for people to understand that the movies are...the movies...and they're bullshit a lot of the time. People don't think Spider-man is real, but they may be likely to overestimate how many people out there are smart enough and capable of achieving something just as astounding as making your own Spider-man suit and web shooters.

People need to work on checking the movies in this sort of way. People use them for a framework, I think, for understanding what cities are like that they haven't been to, and how people should act. I am pretty sure once I saw Steven A Smith doing a very good job emulating how Denzel Washington behaves in some of his movies. This is what the movies do. They teach people how to behave in certain situations. And I think they can skew our model of the world in comparison to how it actually is.

Guinness has fastest speed reader at 25k wpm
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8-bit_Biceps posted...

Is this even possible? I can type 100 wpm if I'm lucky. So he can read 200 times faster than I can type?

Well, I'd like to think that anyone with a brain can read much faster than they can type. After all, you have to be able to formulate words in your head before your brain tells your fingers what to do and put it down on paper.
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8-bit_Biceps posted...

Is this even possible?

Yes it is. There basing this character off Dawkins. But they lowered the wpm to make it more believable
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Penis
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When I am really into a book I somehow can take in full pages at a time, but I consciously slow down because it seems like spoilers.
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its easier to read than write

slimfizzle2 posted...

8-bit_Biceps posted...

Is this even possible?

Yes it is. There basing this character off Dawkins. But they lowered the wpm to make it more believable

Dawkins? Only Dawkins I know is Richard Dawkins.

Speed reading is a skill. People that read that fast don't read 1 or even a few words at a time. They dont read outloud in their head. They eyes are literally taking snapshots of several words if not sentences, if not multiple lines at once and their brain is processing it all at once.

I tried learning speed reading once but didn't bother practicing.
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I thought most people could read multiple lines at once.
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DanHarenChamp posted...

Speed reading is a skill. People that read that fast don't read 1 or even a few words at a time. They dont read outloud in their head. They eyes are literally taking snapshots of several words if not sentences, if not multiple lines at once and their brain is processing it all at once.

I tried learning speed reading once but didn't bother practicing.

It still seems really fast but I suppose it's possible. I'm learning piano now and the other day I sort of had this moment where I realized that my ability to read the notes on the page is slowly changing. I was like more aware of the notes in a greater area or something...like the focal point of my vision was wider in a sense. Or really you could just describe it as my visual attention was effectively being divided into key areas (the notes I need to read).

I wonder if this skill, when developed, will transfer well to reading English.

Isn't it limited by how much your retina can physically detect?

Your field of vision may look wide, but only a tiny central portion of the retina has cells spaced close enough together so you can see fine items with any detail. Try focusing on one word of a text you're unfamiliar with and see how many of the words you can make out without moving your eyes.

Complete_Idi0t posted...

Isn't it limited by how much your retina can physically detect?

Your field of vision may look wide, but only a tiny central portion of the retina has cells spaced close enough together so you can see fine items with any detail. Try focusing on one word of a text you're unfamiliar with and see how many of the words you can make out without moving your eyes.

Alcataluy yuor mnid can raed wdros that are scerlabmd as long as the first and last letters are in the right place. So you take in more info that you think when reading.
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That just means that the English language is inefficient

I'm quite sure it's just your eyes taking in the most important words, and then just skimming over all of the prepositions and pronouns, and the brain uses context to fill in the gaps.
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Speed reading is a skill that can be learned pretty easily, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.
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Your peripheral vision still registers black and white. I imagine though if it's not very good then you'd have a harder time reading .
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There are also other factors which will affect ability to read, for example:
ALL CAPS IS QUITE DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO READ FOR SOME REASON WHICH IS WHY CONTRACT WRITERS AND LAWYERS LOVE PUTTING EVERYTHING IN CAPS
Courier text is not all that easy to read either. I can't remember the reasoning
Generally sans-serif on digital and serif on paper are easier, though modern fonts like Calibri have sought to be easy on the eyes in both settings.
Same applies to bold and italics.
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