(no subject)

[moominmolly]

When you read a book -- when you get into the reading groove, that is -- how do you absorb the individual words? Do you start at the beginning and go to the end? Do you recognize the letters as a group? Do you recognize the shape of the word, or word sets? Something else entirely? Is this something you can even SEE in yourself?

In general, I think of my brain as working very much like my brother Paul's, but in this case, we've never really lined up, so I'm curious how the rest of the world works. I sort of have a pathological relationship to letters, so I'm not very objective.

EDIT: when people speak, I see the letters pass through my brain.

Comments

[coraline]

i think i operate very similar to you, at least WRT to the devouring-whole-sentences when reading fiction. emai;/IM/LJ is definitely "flavored" by the personality of the person i'm reading, and that flavor may have something to do with voice, but i'm not doing anything like "hearing" the voice in my head. it's almost more like speaking it.

of course, this is one of those centipede's dilemma or "don't think about a white horse" heisenburg things, where observing how i do it changes how i do it...

[(Anonymous)]

yeah, observation is causing it to change...

but i'll take the "normal" case -- reading a fiction novel. at some point shortly after starting to read, i drop into the story. it's a little like dreaming. i'm "experiencing" the book, not reading it. i can look up, put it down, but the whole time i'm actually reading (and in the best of times with a gripping readable story, i'm matching meg's speed of 120+ pages/hr) i'm inside the story. it's gotten to where, if i can't get inside the story, i put the book down.

--desrt born, posting from work