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.

[identity profile] vespid-interest.livejournal.com 2007-03-30 05:55 am (UTC)(link)
I'm mostly the same way, but recently discovered a different way of reading very poorly written text. Text that is covered in misspellings or has l33t-speak or is grammatically scattered. It feels like squinting but on a brain level rather than a sight level -- letting the words just sort of wash by with as little analysis as possible.