Summary of Findings: Speed Reading (3 out of 5 Stars)

Note: This post represents the synthesis of the thoughts, procedures and experiences of others as represented in the articles read in advance (see previous posts) and the discussion among the students and instructor during the Advanced Analytic Techniques class at Mercyhurst University in October 2018 regarding Speed Reading as an Analytic Technique, specifically. This technique was evaluated based on its overall validity, simplicity, flexibility and its ability to effectively use unstructured data.

Description:

Speed reading is “a set of  active, mindful and conscious strategies that allow a person to speed up what they are reading”. Methods for improving/teaching speed reading include skimming, scanning, satisficing, the Evelyn Wood Method, RSVP, track and pace method, pointer method, etc., all of which are designed to help you read faster.    

Strengths:

1. Increases the speed at which you read (e.g., number of words per minute).
2. Helps the reader to identify important parts of the text more quickly.

Weaknesses:  

1. Reading comprehension is often adversely affected by speed reading.  
2. Readers are likely to skip over details that may affect the analysis of the text.
3. Effectiveness of speed reading is contingent upon the difficulty of the material.

1. For example, scientific journal articles, government publications, and online news articles all vary in reading-level difficulty because they are written with different styles and for different audiences.  

How-To:

There are a number of speed reading techniques that have been proven to increase reading rates to some degree.  The three techniques employed in class included:

1. An eye-scanning training exercise (Youtube),
2. Placing a notecard above the line one is currently reading forcing the reader to continue to move eyes down the page, and finally,
3. A meta-guiding technique where the reader traced the current word using a pen in order to guide the eye to move faster along the text, avoiding fixating on a single word or phrase.

Application of Technique:

The class conducted an exercise to test two speed reading methods. Students first assessed how many words were in the first five lines of our reading material. As an initial exercise, students read their reading material for 1 minute, marking start and ending points.

Following the initial exercise, students were shown a Youtube video to warm-up and prepare their eyes for using our chosen techniques. The video showed an object, in this case a pumpkin, move to different points on the screen over the course of a 1.5 minute period. Students were required to follow the object with their eyes, without moving their heads as the object moved.  

The first technique applied was the Card method. Students took an index card and placed it above the words/sentences being read. As students completed each sentence, they would move the card down the page.

The second technique applied was the Pointer method. Using this method, students would take a pen or pencil and place the tip  under the line being read. The aim of the technique is for the student to follow the tip of the pen/pencil as they read, encouraging them to move along the line, left to right.

In each method, students were advised to try and increase reading speed over the course of the allotted 1 minute time frame for the exercises. At the end of each exercise, they noted how many lines they were able to read.  Additionally, students were advised to focus on their speed, as opposed to the comprehension of the material being read.

At the conclusion of the exercises, students assessed how many lines and words they read during the initial exercise reading normally, reading using the Card method, and then reading using the Pointer method. On average, students read faster with the Card and Pointer methods in compared to the initial exercise where they read normally.   

For Further Information:

The effects of reading speed and reading patterns on understanding of text read from screens  

Speedreader11 Youtube channel

So Much to Read, So Little Time

Speed Reading: You Can’t Always Get What You Want, but Can You Sometimes Get What You Need?

Reading Speed Improvement in a Speed Reading Course and Its Effect on Language Memory Span

By Thi Ngoc Yen Tran, Vinh University, Vietnam &

Paul Nation, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

(2014)

Summary:

This paper examines the relationships between English as a foreign

language (EFL) reading speed, reading comprehension, and memory span by looking at the comprehension scores and language memory span results. Reading speed is generally thought to be associated with reading comprehension, however experts are still arguing if this is true or not. Nicholson and Tan argue that poor readers benefit from rapid decoding training and suggested that, in children’s first language, oral reading, speed increases facilitate comprehension. However, research found that speed and comprehension are not competing components in second languages performance. Speed and comprehension have a supporting relationship by speed promoting accuracy in comprehension and accuracy is one of the indicators of fluency development.

For their study the authors used the book “Asian and Pacific Speed Readings for ESL Learners” by Millett, Quinn and Nation, an adapted version of Quinn and Nation, was used for the speed-reading course. They used 116 first-year students at a university in Vietnam. These students were then split into four groups, A, B, C, and D.  The participants in Groups A, B and C were English majors at the university. The participants in Group D were non-English majors. The students were required to take a vocabulary test to qualify for the study. All groups also took a pre- test on reading other types of texts and memory span. Following that Group A and B took both the speed-reading course and the usual English program.

Their findings showed that both Group A and B made average increases of at least 50 wpm after the speed-reading course. The authors found that 62% of the participants increased their comprehension level, 20% of them kept their comprehension at the same level and only 17% had their comprehension scores decrease. The table below shows the break down of percentages based on groups.

Memory span was improved in all groups between pre and post tests. There was a slightly larger increase in the groups that had done the speed-reading course, however increase was not significant enough to draw a conclusion. The data did show that the larger the speed increased throughout the course and on other types of reading, the greater the improvement in memory span.

Critique:

I think the authors did a nice job at setting up this study. They were very detail oriented and measured their findings in several ways to confirm the findings. They also were able to sort of measure the human error on this topic. I think it would have been interesting to expand the study to people who’s first language is English to see if there is a significant increase in memory span. Also, comparing the effects of speed-reading between people who’s first language is English to second language would be interesting to see if there is a larger increase in words per minute.

Link:http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v11n12014/tran.pdf

Satisficing: A Skimming Technique for Identifying Important Information Quickly

Duggan, G. B., & Payne, S. J. (2009). Text Skimming: The Process and Effectiveness of Foraging Through Text Under Time Pressure. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 15(3), 228-242.

Summary:

The purpose of the study at hand is to determine whether readers that skim through longer texts effectively allocate their limited time for identifying important information. Of the different skimming techniques that have been developed, Duggan and Payne identified satisficing as the skimming strategy of interest for their study. Satisficing is an information-foraging technique in which a reader moves on to the next paragraph or section once the reader perceives him or herself to have gathered sufficient information. 

Duggan and Payne conducted a study to examine the effectiveness of stratisficing as a skimming technique to find important information in a long text. The experiment examined two groups: the skim condition and the half-text condition. The skim condition group was told that they won't have enough time to read all of the text and to allocate and prioritize time accordingly. The half-text condition group was instructed to read at a normal pace, however one half of the text was missing (the first or second half). The research design allows for studying of two types of readers: those that skim to finish a full document and those who read at a normal pace and subsequently only get through half of the document. 

The authors hypothesized that memory for meaning would be greater when skimming compared to those who read half the text at a normal pace. The results supported the hypothesis that readers correctly recognized more of the important sentences after skimming than reading half texts and retained more information about the structure of the text. However, it is important to note that skimming did not improve understanding of unimportant sentences or inferences about the information. 

Duggan and Payne go on to suggest that readers under time pressures can achieve improved understanding of the main elements of the text by satisficing. The satisficing technique is particularly effective under time constraints because it mediates the common problem that "pages and documents suffer from diminishing returns in terms of rate of gain of valuable information". The phenomenon of diminishing returns occurs because there is a degree of redundancy of information in longer texts and writers typically organize important information by separating them into different paragraphs and sections. Thus, the longer a reader remains in a single paragraph or section, the more redundant and less valuable the single paragraph or section generally becomes. In this way, the authors support the use of satisficing when reading under time constraints to find the most important information. However, the authors do point out that satisficing does not aid memory of less important details and does not facilitate the inferences about information from the text. 

Critique:

The authors of this article make a compelling argument for the use of satisficing as a skimming technique to find important information in a long text. If under time constraints as an analysts, this can certainly be a useful technique for finding the most important information in the fastest way possible. However, my main concern with the use of satisficing lies with the authors' findings that satisficing did not facilitate the inferences about information from the text. In other words, this means that readers can reliably identify what is important, but why the information is important and how it fits into the bigger context remains out of the readers' comprehension. The bigger picture and the inferences about the information is arguably the most important part of the analyst's job and without good inference the quality of analysis suffers. As a result, I believe analysts are justified in using satisficing under time constraints, but should appropriately account for satisficing by reducing analytic confidence in their estimates. 

Reading Faster

Author: Nation, Paul

Date: 2009

Summary:

Paul Nation, a Professor in Applied Linguistics, wrote this article to describe reading processes as it pertains to reading speed. He also discusses ways in which an individual can increase their reading speed (including orally), and fluency development and activities.

The author begins with the nature and the limits of reading speed. Three types of action are involved when people read, fixations on particular words, jumping to the next word to focus on, and regression or going back and re-reading a word or a phrase. Research on eye movement while reading has determined that, a skilled reader at 250-300 words per minute, tend to get fixated on 90 words out of 100, these are mainly words with content. Longer words usually are fixated and the longer it is, it may be fixated 2 or 3 times. Research also says that people reading in the English language, usually jump is around 1.2 words, or 8 letters total. Lastly, for every 100 fixations, the average skilled reader makes around 15 regressions. Regressions occur because of big jumps in the text or due to misunderstanding.

If someone is reading at a faster pace, around 400-500 words per minute, they are no longer reading carefully but are doing “expeditious reading.” If the topic being read is familiar to the reader, they may be able to answer questions in detail on words they were not fixated on. Reading speed can be affected by the difficulty of the reading and the purpose of the reading. There are two types of expeditious reading - skimming and scanning. Generally reading about 300-400 words per minute, skimming, is where the reader reads through the text not paying attention to every word, mainly to get the gist of the text. Details usually go unnoticed. Background knowledge of the reading is likely to increase the skimming speed. Scanning entails searching for particular pieces of information including, words, phrases, numbers or names. Skimming skills are more useful because scanning skills rely on skimming and reading skills.

The author then discusses reading aspects and how they change fluency develops. Decoding is taking written text and turning it into a verbal form. Word recognition and repetition of an activity or the same material, help improve a readers speed and understanding of the text. The author often refers to reading speed and fluency to those who know English as a second language but discusses effective ways in which anyone can increase their reading speed level.

Research suggests that 150 words per minute is good oral reading and 250 words per minute is good silent reading. Pressure in reading fast, results in stressing and reduces a reader’s ability to comprehend what they are reading. A way to increase reading more words per minute is to speed read timed readings and answer questions after, there are courses offered to help improve speed. It is best to read at a slower pace to better understand the text, there is no point in speed reading if nothing is understood. 

Critique:

Speed reading, more specifically, skimming, is obviously a beneficial technique when trying to acquire more general information or the gist about a reading. An issue I find with it when looking at it from an analyst’s point of view is that sometimes one may read over a small important detail that can lead to or answer what you are looking for. I understand that speed reading is useful when determining whether the article is useful or not, but sometimes a significant piece can be overlooked. 

So Much to Read, So Little Time: How Do We Read, and Can Speed Reading Help?

Authors:

Keith Rayner, Elizabeth Schotter, Michael Masson, Mary Potter, Rebecca Treiman

Date:

January 14, 2016

Summary by:

Bryant Kimball

Summary:

This article, published by the Association for Psychological Science, serves as a literature review of the scientific studies on the relationship between speed reading and reading comprehension.  An overwhelming amount of literature on the relationship shows that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy.  They conclude that although speed reading exercises do successfully increase reading rate, reading significantly faster comes with the trade-off of losing a certain amount of comprehension. 

The authors highlight a number of experiments centered on using variations of a technique called rapid serial visual presentation, or RSVP. Rather than getting readers to move their eyes across lines of text, the words are presented individually, at a constant speed, faster than the natural reading rate. This technique is supposed to make readers more efficient because they spend less time fixating on words, moving their eyes back or forth across words, or backtracking to reread parts of sentences. To test the effectiveness of RSVP on comprehension, though, Schotter, Tran, and Rayner performed an experiment where a control group read a regular paragraph, while the experimental group were presented with a trailing-mask manipulation, where each letter in a word was replaced by a generic “x” after reading. “This manipulation ensured that readers had only one encounter with the word—if they returned to reread it, they would be looking at a string of x’s.”


The researchers found that readers could accurately respond to comprehension questions about the sentence much better when they were able to reread words (75% accuracy) than when they could not (50% accuracy). Thus, reading through each word once with RSVP was found to be insufficient for successful understanding of the text. 


Many speed reading techniques like RSVP do not allow for the reader to backtrack in order to make sense of something by using context clues. Thus, the authors note language skills to be at the heart of reading speed and comprehension. “The way to maintain high comprehension and get through text faster is to practice reading and become a more skilled language user.”

Critique:

The increasing importance of open-source collection within the intelligence community has placed a greater emphasis on consuming a significant load of material usually within some sort of time constraint.  Thus, reading speed and comprehension become requisites to any useful analysis.  This literature review does an excellent job of highlighting the advantages of speed reading exercises when it comes to increasing reading rates. But the authors note that the goal of the reading itself is important because much of the research shows that it is unlikely anyone is capable of doubling or tripling their reading speed without sacrificing comprehension.  With analysis, comprehension is key, therefore, the authors would note to exercise caution when it comes to speed reading information useful to analysis.  I would argue that although the authors have their reservations with speed reading, using speed reading exercises to increase your reading rate doesn’t mean you HAVE to speed read everything.  As an analyst, using good judgment as to when you can get away with reading faster and when you may need to backtrack in order to figure out what something meant in a specific context is just plain common sense.  To me, even with the limitations outlined by the authors, speed reading exercises would be a useful modifier to add to the analyst toolkit. 

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1529100615623267

Summary of Findings: Meditation (4 out of 5 Stars)

Note: This post represents the synthesis of the thoughts, procedures and experiences of others as represented in the articles read in advance (see previous posts) and the discussion among the students and instructor during the Advanced Analytic Techniques class at Mercyhurst University, in October 2018 regarding Meditation as an Analytic Modifier, specifically. This technique was evaluated based on its overall validity, simplicity, flexibility and its ability to effectively use unstructured data.

Description:

Meditation is an analytic modifier that allows one to focus attention on a particular object, thought, or breath to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state.  It is a technique used to reduce stress and exercise mental awareness. There are multiple techniques and belief systems that can be tied to meditation. Some research has shown that it can improve resistance to sunk-cost bias. To the best of our knowledge, we have not found any studies that show meditation has an effect on forecasting accuracy. Future studies should address this shortcoming in the academic literature, especially if there is any future for meditation as a useful modifier for analysis.  

Strengths:

• Reduce stress, anxiety, depression
• Increase ability to parse reality
• Increase focus
• Decrease projection and rumination

Weaknesses:  

• Requires consistency
• Lacks immediate results
• Requires open-minded practitioners
• Difficult to apply specifically to intelligence problems

How-To:

Below are specific steps to Vipassana or Mindfulness:

1. Sit up straight and close your eyes
2. Notice your breath. Pick a spot where you feel it most and focus your full attention on that spot
3. Notice when you get lost and start over
   
   
   

Application of Technique:

The class was presented with an introduction to the practice of Vipassana in terms of its origins and current practice today. Students then conducted their own Vipassana exercise according to the video guide below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzMhLmErz5Q

The 8 minute exercise guided the class through the steps listed above, asking one to sit up straight with the eyes closed, breath naturally, and simply notice the breath.  The trick to vipassana is to notice when one gets lost in thought and re-focus on the breath. 

A class discussion followed the exercise and covered a range of topics including meditation’s ability to mediate cognitive biases, establish an internal locus of control, and serve as a modifier to complement other analytic techniques.

Vipassana is commonly referred to as mindfulness, which has a growing range of literature supporting its psychological benefits.  Although not explicitly stated in the exercise, it has quality of mind has been shown to control pain, mitigate anxiety and depression, improve cognitive function, and even produce changes regulating emotions, and self awareness.

For Further Information:

Websites
Getting Started With Mindfulness

Sam Harris
UCLA: Free Guided Meditations

Books
Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Gunaratana
The Experience of Insight, by Joseph Goldstein
Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
10% Happier, by Sam Harris
Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation, by Sharon Salzberg