moominmolly: (m-laut)
moominmolly ([personal profile] moominmolly) wrote2007-03-29 10:42 am

(no subject)

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.
bluepapercup: (Default)

[personal profile] bluepapercup 2007-03-29 08:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I mostly just absorb sentences wholesale and then my mind extracts the concepts.

What I do perceive that's sort of sometimes distracting but generally useful and pleasant is that words, to me, are shaped like the thing they are describing. For example, the word dog looks like a little dog. Abstract words do this too, but sometimes in misleading ways, as a word will occassionally look "positive" but have a negative definition.

When people are speaking I don't see words or letters. Mostly I watch their face, I sometimes notice the words come out of their mouth and it weirds me out.

PS - Mr. Ben, who was homeschooled and taught himself to read and write, sounds the words out in his head as he read, as if he was reading the book out loud to himself. This causes problems, as I read quite fast, and he reads slowly. We appear to absorb approximately the same amount of content, though we usually come away with different details being more memorable. Interesting.