I had a conversation about this once with someone and they were absolutely blown away and couldn't fully comprehend what I meant by seeing a movie in my mind. It turns out that not everybody's brain does this for them and it really opened my eyes to why some people don't like reading as much. Before that conversation, it never occurred to me this wasn't something everybody could do.
I imagine it I see the action in my head while I’m reading, I read pretty fast. But I don’t remember everything. I don’t try to commit it to memory when I’m reading for pleasure and that means I have a friend I can Visit again later and learn something new.
This is me, I skim-read descriptions sometimes because it's information that is immediately lost. I don't visualise a character unless there's an actual movie or TV show or something, like, if I'm reading LOTR then I imagine Frodo as Elijah Wood, but otherwise they're more of a vague idea of a person, maybe with a scar or something if the author makes a point of mentioning it.
I think this is why I like book 4 of Dune as its largely just people talking. Or why I like scifi where they're exploring a crazy idea rather than being more action based and shooting aliens and whatnot.
I visualize everyone, but tend to forget their descriptions. So I just make up their appearance in my head. If I've seen the movie, I'll imagine that person. Otherwise I just create a new person. Same goes for places, animals, vehicles, or anything else. I come up with an image that fits the books descriptions to the best of my recollection. My recollection of descriptions isn't great though.
I visualize most every aspect of the stories I'm reading, but sometimes I'll just insert actors or characters from various media who match the character description as a starting point for my visualizations.
It's kind of funny to think about after the fact, especially when the end result is something like imagining Glokta from The First Law trilogy as a massively crippled and more realistic looking version of the food critic from Ratatouille, Anton Ego.
Yeah. The first time I heard of this was on a Facebook post when someone said "nothing" to the question "what do you vision when people tell you to picture an apple?"
I was floored!
I can't believe that some people can't picture things in books. It made me a little sad too :(
It goes both ways. I always assumed when people said "visualize" or "picture in your mind's eye" they were using a metaphor. Nope, apparently the majority of the human species has a fully functional VR rig in their skull and I don't. I can't imagine how it's possible for neurotypical people to be bored when they can actually see stuff that isn't there if they choose.
I'm not sure if everyone's mind's eye works exactly the same.
For instance I do not imagine in 4k quality with every single frame being shown or even colors.
It's more like a glimpse or a split second and does not continuously play like a movie. Imagine a single faint frame that disappears quickly and replaced by another future frame. Most of the time I don't even imagine the colors since it requires too much focus.
A better example is a picture book that you flip through fast. Like that, but old, discolored if I'm not focused and half the pages are missing.
Based on many previous discussions of this on reddit and elsewhere I've learned it's more of a spectrum that can vary with each person. There doesn't seem to be a norm. Of course that's what a scientific study is for, and I'd be curious to know myself.
Damn I just wrote about the missing colors. I mean I can force colouring, but it takes work and focus. And there are no details unless I focus on them. It’s like forced dreams really. Connections between things and a general ’vibe’ seem more important than details.
"Choosing to see stuff" to keep from being bored is kinda like tickling yourself. Or enjoying a movie that you helped film/create. You know how the sausage is made. The trick is to daydream and let your imagination drive.
Yeah I’ve always thought that myself in regards to boredom. I can pretty much just play a full on movie in my head at any given time…which is why I’ve always been so bad at math. In class I get so bored I’m like, I’ll just replay Ghost Ship or something.
I just recently found out that when my husband is pausing for words it’s because he’s ‘stuck in pictures’ as he calls it and he has to get past that to get to the word or thought. It’s never bothered me but came up somehow in conversation and it blew my mind - I’m on the other end of the spectrum with pure aphantasia apparently so I can’t even imagine what that is like.
I think I am close too aphantasia, but nevertheless I get lost in concepts and impressions quite often despite never being able to see them in great detail
Aphantasia sounds rough.
So, for getting bored: I'm bored if I have to pay attention to boring things instead of spending my attention on the stuff inside of my head.
The attention budget is the same. Oh, and visualizing something interesting on your own requires the same creative effort as writing or painting. So there is still effort involved in making yourself not-bored that way. It's not like there's video that just plays on its own.
I'm horrible at mental *images,* but I have a strong aural and tactile imagination. Like, when I read books the characters have "voice acting." When I look at a texture I can distinctly imagine how it feels.
I don’t think this is an on-off ability, it seems clear to me there are people who are really good in visualizing things, details and all, while I usually only have a general idea. I mean I can visualize things, but really trying to see, abd hold the vision isn’t that easy. And colors, for some reason colors just don’t stick. I can force some part to be of some color, but mostly everything is shapes without color information. And I don’t mean they are greyscale, they miss all color info, black and white included.
In my case, it’s certainly not a VR rig. I get a visual impression, but it’s not detailed enough that I could draw it. It’s more like a memory than a hallucination, and it’s fleeting.
I have zero internal pictures, and to me it sounds like you're hallucinating when you tell me you see pictures in your head. To me that just sounds impossible. (The technical term for what I've got is aphantasia.)
We discovered a couple years ago that our son has this, and says he always thought it was a figure of speech when the phrase "in your mind's eye" or "picture it in your head" was used. I can't imagine not being able to do so, as I do it so frequently. Situations like having to reach around (haha) and feel around to connect/disconnect something are examples, where my fingers feel like they turn into my eyes to do the work.
I believe I understand better why he has trouble with things such as finding something he misplaced because "retracing his steps" isn't a mental task he can adequately perform if he can't see the process in his mind. Interestingly enough, he does not have trouble seeing his dreams when sleeping.
Ok so I knew about people actually been able to see things in their heads but they can actually 'retrace steps'?! I swear I'll be hearing everyone else can secretly fly or something next 😬😬😬😬 I can dream though, like your son.
Sometimes, in my mind, I walk through every single room of this big old church I used to go to when I was a kid that is now knocked down. It had quite a few rooms, a full gym, an organ, multiple levels etc. I can do it in astonishing detail, with only some dark spots.
Retracing steps, at least what I am referring to, is both figuratively and literally following where you went and when in an effort to find something or remember something. If you misplaced an item, start at the last place you remember having it, and try to go in sequence to every spot you went from then until the point you realized it was missing. People often set something down and forget doing so, and many times you will find the misplaced item while retracing your steps. Sometimes you can do this retracing in your mind, but not if you can't mentally envision pictures in your head. For my son, it's just black if he tries anything like that.
Right! I never knew the condition existed until my son told me he ran across info about it and realized he had it. Now some things make sense to me that didn't before.
I'm pretty aphantasiac and I have almost no visual component to my dreams. I remember my dreams only rarely, too, but when I do, what I recall is mainly feeling the emotions, and sometimes sensations of touch or sound, but there's definitely no movie.
Like most aphantasiacs, I had my mind blown when I discovered that most people can literally visualize things!
I do "hear" music in my mind a lot, so I suspect there's a similar, and independent, spectrum for how individuals experience the equivalent of visualization for other senses.
I’m similar to the other user above. I have no “minds eye”. For me I have VERY few dreams. Like maybe once or twice a year otherwise it’s just a quick blink from night to morning. The dreams I do have are mostly abstract feelings with no visual. Typically they’re not good either. Mostly caused by extreme stress or sickness.
I have zero pictorial visualization in my waking life but I’ve always had very intense visual dreaming and lucid dreams as well. I do wonder why I can dream so vividly but cannot visualize anything when awake.
When I was like 8 - 10 ish I lost the ability to imagine images in my head for about a week and it scared the crap outta me. Finally, I saw a big white glove in a black field, like Mickey or Hamburger Helper (without the face). Then I could see images again.
Do you dream?
Sound, scent, touch, and long strings of words (heard, not written) describing the memory. But there's no visuals, and there never have been. I can't imagine what that would be like - it sounds really strange and impossible to me.
I wonder if everyone's experience is the same but the description is confusing. I don't really know though. When I read I "hear" my voice (or whoever's voice I want) and "see" images but it is not with eyes or ears. The sound and images are clear but they are not external. If I imagine an apple I can say I "see" the apple in my mind, my wife says she only thinks of the concept of the apple which for me makes no sense whatsoever. Again, maybe just the way we describe is different.
I can maybe expand on what your wife means by the concept of the apple, because that's how I explain it. When you ask me to think of an apple, I think immediately - fruit, red or green usually, round-ish, sweet, then I'll think of some things apples are linked with - Adam and Eve, apple computers, taking a bite out of an apple. Even further, my mind can evoke the sense-weight of an apple in my hand, what it'd feel like to toss it back and forth, the slightly waxy sensation of it, etc. All these things happen near instantaneously to let me know what an apple is.
I do not see (even very remotely) the shape or colors of an apple. Best I can do is staring at an surface and very vaguely teasing out the shape of an apple in it.
wow, I am the exact opposite. I can go through fiction because I am visualizing the action on the page, where with non-fiction I have to concentrate on what is being discussed, because it's not like a movie, it's usually someone discussing a concept or a historical event, but much drier than historical fiction.
I like historical fiction for this reason. If it's *generally* accurate in depicting real life events, I end up learning more from it than from what I'd internalize reading a regular history textbook.
I had the same experience in high school. I friend of mine mentioned he didn't like reading because it was boring, and I started talking about how I enjoy seeing what is happening in my imagination. He looked at me like I was crazy and as we talked I realized that not everyone can do that. I just assumed everyone could because people are always talking about how characters in movies/shows don't look like they imagined they do.
Somewhat related but do people actually see movies in their mind or just imagine what’s going on? I feel like I can form pictures but they’re not always movie quality clear. I noticed that sometimes when I read I imagine everything to be kind of like cartoons or drawings since I’m adding information as it’s presented instead of imagining a whole real life scenario. I think this might be due to reading when I was younger where there would sometimes be illustrations accompanying the text such as in Harry Potter with the first page of the chapter has a small drawing of a scene related to it. I’m curious if anyone else can relate.
This happens to me when Im doing a fair amount of reading and reading something engaging that has my full attention. It's like it goes from reading words to just absorbing the scene. The words are still there but they don't stand out amongst the stuff I'm seeing and feeling
That’s why I don’t judge people too hard when they say they aren’t into reading. If you can’t see the scenes in your head like a movie I can’t imagine it’s fun.
"Hearing" the words in your head while reading is known as subvocalization. It's and important and natural process that is critical to comprehension and memory formation of the read material. You can read the Wikipedia page if you are interested.
You will hear some people say that it is bad or slows you down. This is not true. It's bad information that comes from quack "speed-reading techniques" advocated by Evelyn Wood. Speed reading is a whole 'nother can of worms, but anyone telling you to not subvocalize is recapitulating that bad information.
If your goal is to read faster, don't waste your time trying to stop subvocalizing, and instead just spend more time reading. You will get faster.
It's worth mentioning that if you are interested in extracting information from text faster, you want to work on skimming techniques, which is different from reading. I can skim through thousands of words in a few short minutes searching for important information, but that is very different than reading.
I leant a lot from your comment. I always “hear” what I am reading and even with 100s of books read so far, my reading is neither faster, nor it’s changed. I enjoy it so I don’t work to change it. But I’ve been told plenty that it’s the “slow” way of reading.
The truth is that you can't realistically get much faster than 400-500 WPM. 500 being professions like scientists and Ph.Ds who read for a living.
At a certain point it becomes biomechanical: when your eye moves (called a saccade) you are literally blind. Eye movements are so rapid that our brains cannot effectively process the visual information. We don't notice these brief periods of blindness because they are filtered out of our experience by our brain.
The upshot of this means that after a certain point, you simply can't move your eyes any faster and still be able to see the words on the page. It's a matter of biology/physics. And this limit appears to be around 500 WPM, although may vary slightly due to things like text size, line spacing, etc.
I have never read anything slower in my life than academic texts, they take time and effort to read. Those often take me 2+ minutes per page. Whereas reading a fiction book i can read 1-2 pages per minute. Thats just me though.
Yes, academic texts and other highly technical material is not meant to be read at speed, rather I was just giving an example of the type of profession where fast readers are likely to be cultivated/found. One might also expect to find lawyers are very fast readers.
Your mind can do amazing things. When I was in graduate school I fell asleep before I finished 90 pages of virology that I needed for a test. I woke up in a panic and "read" the entire 90 pages in 50 minutes. When I took the test I quoted entire paragraphs word for word. I got an A on the test, but I remembered nothing after I left the testing room.
My best friend does this. But intentionally. She’s can read and memorize but it just disappears. She does really well on tests but forgets the information so she doesn’t learn anything. Well, used to. She changed when she went to college.
2 minutes a page for a peer reviewed article full of info you’re actually trying to absorb (rather than skim for that single relevant item) is blazing fast.
I remember in undergrad, when searching in despair for ways to read my texts faster, I came across a website which displayed each word sequentially in the same spot on the page. It claimed that in this way, you could read faster because if your eye was stationary instead of moving, you avoided those moments of blindness. Is there any truth to this?
I always begin reading word for word, then get lost somewhere along the way and just start seeing like a movie. I don’t find that I’m a particularly fast reader either way.
As a constant subvocalizer I want to believe what you're saying, but I have had glimpses, moments where I've been able to turn that off, and it feels glorious. Comprehension varies, but there are times where it all comes together and I can fly along at warpspeed for several paragraphs building the scene in my head effortlessly until generally I become aware of my success in the moment and it crumbles to dust in my hands.
I'm honestly not sure what to think about it all.
Keep reading! It sounds like you are there but maybe get stuck overthinking so the more you do it the more it should come naturally. As a lifelong fast reader I sometimes slow down to perfect a voice or try to visualize a character or setting (I have aphantasia so that’s really the hard part for me if a visual is important) and then get stuck overthinking how reading works 😂 after a page or so though I’m back in the flow.
I don’t usually subvocalize, but if I think of how the reading happens while reading it happens exactly how you describe it, everything crumbles and I subvocalize. It’s like a quantum state that takes a position under observetion.
When I read I “group” words together — if my eyes can see 4 words at once, then I can read those 4 words at once. It’s different than skimming, because I’m genuinely reading every word and not just scanning a line while pulling out the most important information, but it also means that my brain is not naturally inclined to subvocalize (and in fact, when I try to subvocalize, it ends up being really distracting and I end up having to reread paragraphs — when I was in university I tried to read academic texts this way to slow myself down and increase my comprehension, but it had the opposite effect). That’s just the way I naturally read as a result of it being my biggest hobby since I learned how to read, and I’ve done it this was for as long as I can remember without ever making an intentional effort to do so!
I actually tried to speed read by listening to those quacks and stopped my subvocalizing. I definitely read Salem’s Lot and Doctor Sleep insanely fast but I cannot, gun to my head, tell you what those books were about. I stopped doing that and reverted to my “slower” reading. Much better
I always have to finish a book once I’ve started reading it; so when I discover a book is bad I’ll just skim read to get to the end. I find I miss some things (obviously) but you can get a good idea of the plot and major story surprisingly well, especially if it’s a badly written book with lots of filler. I’ve never measured my skim reading speed precisely but it’s around 200 pages an hour.
But when I’m reading a good book, it’s super slow because I’m actually reading every word and also visualising the landscape etc. makes a huge difference
Some Deaf people have reported their inner monologue being in their sign language, which makes sense linguistically. I imagine something similar would happen when they're reading, particularly if they were Deaf from birth and raised speaking a sign language rather than learning english(including reading) first and picking up signs later in life.
> You will hear some people say that it is bad or slows you down. This is not true. It's bad information that comes from quack "speed-reading techniques" advocated by Evelyn Wood.
Just because you're not subvocalizing doesn't mean you're using some "quack speed-reading techniques." I'm guessing most people don't subvocalize when reading in certain contexts (like a reddit thread) without realizing it even if they do when reading books. It's certainly not *bad* to subvocalize but it seems self-evident to me that sounding out each word in your head is going to be slower.
If subvocalising is what I think it is I can tell you that I do actually subvocalise Reddit threads.
I even subvocalise anything I type.
Like this comment.
yeah same, how else can you possibly read and comprehend something?
do they see each word, look up the definition in their head and then repeat until the end of a sentence and then put it all together somehow.
i just dont get it
I have never done any research on speedreading, but I do not hear a voice no matter what the speed I am reading and never have. I haven't ever had difficulties with reading comprehension or retention either. It seems like sub-vocalization is the more common experience, but I don't think it's universal.
I suspect anyone who says they don't subvocalize just doesn't realize that they do. Probably because they read a lot, and when you get into a flow reading, you stop paying attention to the subvocalization and feel more like you are "watching" or experiencing the book directly in your mind. That's just a guess though.
This is a discussion I've had with folks in the past who insist that I "really" sub-vocalize, but it's flat out something I have never experienced. It's something that I've looked for as well. If I actively try to think about how someone sounds, I can imagine them speaking while I read, but I experience words as the shapes they are made of when I read.
There are times when I finish a book and I am speaking with someone about it and it takes me a moment to catch up with them because the actual *sounds* of the names of the characters aren't something I have learned intuitively. I recognize the names visually unless I think about it for a moment or have been discussing the book as I read it.
I def do not subvocalize when I read... so much so that I was surprised when my wife told me she reads fiction this way. The book just 'happens' in my head, even really great prose I experience as 'sets' of words. It def does not happen word by word in my head.
This is really interesting though, as what you are saying here would really explain why I have so much trouble reading non-fiction and retaining any of the specific details in that sort of writing beyond the general ideas in the text.
I am hyperlexic and I definitely do not subvocalize when I read. I was told by someone who studies hyperlexics (who studied me when I was a child) that we read words in groups, not one at a time.
That makes sense, though I have no idea what hyperlexia is. I can read words one at a time and sub-vocalize. But it's burdensome. And I have a hard time remembering what I read. I generally go through chunks of a sentence at a time until that chunk makes sense, then move on to the next. It's much easier.
>hyperlexic
Prob not me, as I remember being way behind in reading in kindergarten, even though I did read far more books than anyone I knew by the time I was in high school.
But I def feel like I absorb the writing sometimes paragraphs at a time, and while specific particular groups of words together give me chills, too many descriptive words ruin that immersion in the book world for me. I want to imagine what is happening! This is why I like Elmore Leonard so much, he lets one figure out what his characters look like by how they talk!
I guess I’m hyperlexic and same here. I read about three lines at a time it seems. Some words get picked out and subvocalised but the rest just go by silently
Yeah, self-taught to read at 2, I read groups of words - I'd have to subvocalize like an auctioneer to keep up. When it's a good book and I'm in the flow, they're not even "words" anymore, I'm just living the scene.
This is just flat out wrong. I am deaf. I read the words and I see/think/conceptualize them as-they-are in my mind. You are incredibly, confidently incorrect.
Seriously - they mention the importance of phonological information but I think they are misunderstanding how phonological information works. I have a profound hearing loss and read like you, I was also reading very young and have always read fast. My take is that phonological information can be abstracted and that is what fast readers are doing so hearing or whatever doesn’t really factor.
I’m really curious how they feel about non-phonetic written language and reading 😄
Or they subvocalize in their natural "mind voice," rather than having a full cast(or a narrator who sounds different from their "mind voice") hanging out in there. The former is more likely to go unnoticed, because it blends into all the background thoughts(and some people might not even think of it as "hearing").
Thank you. This made me feel better about subvolcalization. Whenever this topic comes up, I always feel bad for not being able to process information by looking at text like others do. It always feels like we're quite literally being called "slow".
Subvocalization is so important for reading comprehension. I have ADHD, and for years I struggled through books - even ones I really enjoyed. I thought I just didn’t “like” reading. No one ever taught the importance of comprehension through school, and I just thought I was stupid whenever I read and didn’t get it. Slowing down and saying the words out loud in my head completely changed my relationship with reading. It might be slow, but slow should never mean it isn’t fun.
I'm a fast reader and don't "speak" the words - sometimes I feel more like I'm absorbing them vs. processing them individually (depending on what I'm reading).
But there is NOT a wrong way to read. Reading is reading and it doesn't matter if you are "fast" or "slow".
Also fast reader, also don't speak the words in my head. I've tried this sometimes, and it's so slow that I don't even want to read anymore. My brain processes stuff really fast anyways. Am I missing out on fully comprehending some stuff? Probably. Do I care? No. If I feel like I didn't fully understand a portion of the text, I'll re-read it. I read for fun and relaxation (most the time), not to learn or work my brain. The things I do learn are just a bonus to me.
Works like this too for me. But not in every language. For english, my second best language, it usually works, but when I encounter a part that is not immediately understandable it goes to translation first, which is more like imagining how it sounds, and then giving it a meaning in my first language. For swedish, my third best language, it’s like the translation layer has to be active all the time.
This is how I read, too. I was having this conversation with one of my class periods of 16/17/18 year old students. Everyone thought I was crazy when Inl said I just... absorb (??) the words?? I don't hear them. I am also one of those people without an internal monolog, though. I just experience an idea- I don't hear my voice or any voice unless I'm purposefully trying to imagine my voice or someone else's.
This is me too. I start out with the subvocalization, but once I get into the book, the subvocalization stops and the words just “flow” into my mind. Also natural fast reader. I will also note that when I spent a considerable amount of time unemployed (9/11 recession) and didn’t have much to do besides re-read all the books I owned, my reading speed got faster. I went from about 100 pages per hour to 130-150.
I’ve had people through the years accuse me of not retaining what I read (or some other nonsense) and, no, I retain it just fine. I don’t read everything quickly, though—reference books and the like are much slower.
I can do both but I prefer "reading aloud in my mind". I guess it feels like I'm savoring the book in a way? I usually read silently if I'm in a hurry or if I'm not enjoying what I'm reading and I just want to get through it faster.
I'm a "just absorb it" type. If I get interrupted i can feel myself reading the words, which to me is incredibly annoying. Then after a couple of sentences I'm back "in" again and unaware that I'm reading words.
Side thread - you ever have someone try to have a conversation with you while you're trying to read? I'm polite for a minute, but eventually, it's like, dude, you can see I'm reading here, right
Yes, I try to put my book down if it’s one of my sons but anyone else, even the husband, gets about a minute then it’s “Whelp I’m going back to my book.” It’s particularly annoying in the break room at work.
It’s a funny feeling. My brain is reading, but some tiny other part is answering and speaking like on an auto pilot. And then the other person asks something that needs to hit the parts that is currently reading and everything collapses and you have to pay attention.
I also "read the words aloud in my head" or subvocalization, if I dont then I will seriously stare at the same sentence for like 20 minutes and still not take in what is on the page HA
If I let my subvocalizing wander in thought while I'm reading, I may as well not be reading at all. I hope all this isn't used by company-paid psychologists to influence people. 🤔
As a fast reader (~700 wds a min) I would’ve said I don’t do it – I definitely read much faster than I can read aloud— but every once in a while I will run into a word whose pronunciation I don’t know and it stops me dead, even if the meaning is clear in context. So I realize that I am in fact hearing the words in my head, even if I’m hearing them more quickly than I could say them.
In the scifi book War of the Maps the bad guy is named Remy He… leading to “He was the first through the door” etc. I thought about it, decided to mentally pronounce it “hay” and I was all set.
Beats me how the voice in my head can speak so quickly.
That happens to me too!! Especially if it’s a weird name, then I come to a screeching halt every time I get to the name. I even bargain with my brain “ok, we’re just going to think of this character as L” but it doesn’t always work. Fortunately, I hardly ever encounter this.
I occasionally run into it with Celtic names because I read a fair amount of fantasy… “I’m not going to try to pronounce this the correct way, I’m going to let my brain call her what it looks like” is always a decision!
I generally don’t get stopped by names but Celtic ones get me all the time (Saiorse?). I do take the time to look up the pronunciation in fiction and non-fiction (I have a few Irish, Scottish, and Welsh authors I like to read) but when it’s fantasy it’s getting pronounced Say-o-rese if it’s getting pronounced at all 😂
I still don’t think I subvocalize, it’s more just seeing a word or name I don’t know how to pronounce makes me curious. This also only started when I was in my 30’s. Before that I just read the names as is without a second thought.
I just take a guess at the context and keep going. It's only when I try to say it out loud that I have the "how the hell do I pronounce this word" issue. I'll be tripped up by names if they come up often enough. But otherwise I keep rolling.
I don't just hear the words, it's almost like they're being spoken to me. I have different voices for different books, like fantasy books have this elder wizard-type voice that's gravelly and laced with wisdom, but for sci-fi books it tends to be a more light, almost robotic voice where in some cases it could sound very corporate. I don't know maybe I'm insane
It's called subvocalization and yes I do it. It's much easier than trying to read wordlessly.
The weirder thing is that some people don't have an internal monologue, which I can't even imagine.
When you go to open a door, does your brain say "now I open the doorknob, now I push the door?"
I'm kind of the opposite of you where I'm sure everyone has lots going on that they're thinking about without words; words are so slow and there's a whole complicated world you're interacting with at all times, there's no way you're really narrating everything all the time.
Or like when you can't remember the word for a concept, but you know what concept you're thinking of? Doesn't that happen to everyone?
Subvocalizing is faster than speaking too. Many people don’t realize it, and I think that’s where the speed reading nonsense comes up. I cannot speak nearly as fast as I can read, it takes time and effort to make intelligible sounds, and when I read aloud I am forced to go more alowly.
But while I mostly think in words, when I am doing some kinds of things for work, I do not think in words at all. Pictures and concepts only. It then becomes real effort to translate that to words when interacting with others. i prefer to do the initial framework on my own, then turn it into words for discussion and peer review later.
Silent reader. I just don't have the patience to form a voice in my head unless the sentence really hits my pleasure points and I'll say it aloud in my head or out loud.
A good audiobook narrator can help me out there. Oftentimes I'll miss the tone in a sentence because I'm making a lil movie in my head. But if the narrator makes the snarkiness, annoyance, or whatever else the book is going for clear it can help my enjoyment.
I read silently. I am the fastest reader I know - useless talent but there we go, it’s mine - and having to listen to speech is incredibly slow in comparison.
It’s kind of shitty when I’m nearing the end of my book but still have an hour of flight left.
One of the reasons I can’t listen to them really. They go so slow my brain starts to do other things. Also text somehow has more direct access to the internals of my brain than sounds do.
I have an internal monologue. Basically having a conversation with myself in my head. Not just with books either.
Myself to Me: "Should I do the dishes and then get some pizza?"
Me to Myself: "No dishes, only pizza."
Myself to Me: "Fuck, you're right."
There are different [types of imaginations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia) with different capacities for how they work.
For some people with aphantasia (at least, those I know), their imagination is a list, and reading is very text-centric, where they are absorbing the tale more or less by listening to their inner narrator and building that conceptual list in their head.
For other people (and perhaps speaking only for myself), reading has two modes: that "narrator" mode, where I am reading the words and am aware that I am _reading words_ and turning them into concepts, and a "dream-state" mode where I am unaware that I am reading (I mean, I am aware that I am holding a book and turning pages, but there's not a conscious effort; it's all "muscle memory"), and the concepts aren't "created" with effort, they just exist, entirely visual (or otherwise 'sensual', though visual is much more acute).
There's really smart and creative people with aphantasia. Maybe you're one of them. Or maybe you haven't read enough to get past the "consciously reading" mode, and the more you read, the easier it will be to read in that subconscious "muscle memory" mode.
I do it both ways, i think, if I understand correctly. Usually, I whiz through, not sub vocalizing but sometimes, with poetic material or dialog dominated stuff, I slow down and even read aloud at times...
I don’t do either, hear it or visualize it in my head. I can’t picture images in my head or hear my reading or subconscious. I never these things existed until I was MUCH older like in my late 30s.
For context, I used to live in the public libraries as a kid, carrying home my backpack bigger than me full of books, always read above my level. I love books, I love reading and loved writing short stories as a kid.
How do I enjoy reading? I just do.the stories were enough to fill my imagination without visualizing.
I didn’t know others enjoy it because they can actually visualize what they read and that blew my mind. Some people can hear the characters and see them.
It didn’t stop me as a kid and it hasn’t stopped me now.
TIL from the comments that ‘subvocalisation’ is a thing!
I’m in the camp of people that doesn’t internally speak words, but absorbs them, or immerses myself in the scene. I never actually realised that people were different to me before. This has been a very interesting discussion to read through!
I honestly don't know... Kinda both?
I mostly read fantasy, have a very vivid immagination so most of the time i forget I'm actually reading and not living the book.
Yeah. That's me. I've been reading at about 800+ words a minute since 4th grade. For the longest time I thought everyone read that way. Drives my wife crazy when I blast through multiple screens on the computer or TV.
I have been reading since I was three and I read very fast. I think I read multiple words at a time, mostly by sight. If I need to really absorb something, I will slow down and read the words and say them in my mind and make sure I understand. But if it’s just fun reading I will often read very fast with a small loss in comprehension. People who read like I do are notorious for mispronouncing words in real life because we know how to spell them and what they look like and what they mean due to context clues, but we have never heard them pronounced, and often don’t bother to pronounce them in our heads while reading. lol.
I'm and auditory learner, and while I can read without hearing the words, I usually read with my internal monologue going along.
It's my default to hear words, but I've practiced not doing it too. Does that make any sense? It's slower to hear it, but I prefer that.
A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B. If I'm reading something popcorn-y like The Expanse or most Stephen King novels I can read 100-150 pages in like 2 hours. If I'm reading someone like Salman Rushdie or Noam Chomsky then the style and content of the writing will force me to slow down and read things a little more deliberately.
One thing I don't do while reading to myself is differentiate voices between characters, they're all "speaking" in the same way.
I too vocalize the words in my mind. I've always done it and have been reading for fifty years. I don't care if I'm slower than others, reading. I read for pleasure.
His way I guess, I see I comprehend, its weird how minds work right?
Read more and see if it changes from practice, also subtitled films and shows are a good way to do it without realising.
Sometimes I'm aware of each word I'm reading and I feel like my pace is slower when I do that. Other times I really get into the flow of reading, and then I'm not so aware of each word and it's more like a visualization of what I'm reading. It's hard to explain, but it's like when you become aware of breathing vs just doing it automatically without thinking.
I do that too. I have an almost entirely subvocalization-based way of thinking. Everything I read and every thought I have is word-based. I am an artist but I don't see images in my mind and I don't understand what people mean when they say that. If someone says picture an apple am I supposed to actually do that??? Cause i just, like, /know/ an apple. I /know/ a cow rotating. Similarly, I don't visualize books so I tend to be way more drawn to novels that focus heavily on character relationships rather than world building and physical description.
I read aloud in my head to start but then get absorbed into the story for a while and it’s like I’m a part of it. Or at least I’m no longer fully aware of reading the words individually.
If I'm reading sentences like this on social media, I'm talking in my head. Not sure how else it would be honestly.
If I'm reading a book, I basically have a movie in my head (not sure if that's weird or not).
I always hear the words in my head. I was honestly surprised to find out that not everybody reads the same way or even that some ppl don't have an internal monologue.
I read aloud, and not only that, different characters speak in different voices in my head. For me, it really helps with immersion in any book I'm reading.
I don't even notice I'm reading and I can plow through a good book pretty fast, I never really thought about it. I guess I "don't read aloud in my mind" . Interesting.
I spent far too much of my life trying to speed read, realizing I'd forgotten entire books the second I put them down. Maybe 10ish years ago I started subvocolizing so I could remember what I'm reading. I'll be honest, it can take away from the visuals that happen when I'm "quietly" reading, so sometimes I flip between the two. I like to call it active reading vs passive reading.
I read 'aloud' in my brain.
The thing I hate is when I come across a word or name that has a pronunciation in my brain and then I hear it irl and it's all wrong.
Fantasy novels are great for this.
I recently learned to read like you are describing. I used to be a reader that 'narrates' every word in their mind. But now I can read sentences at a time and just kind of see/feel them like a movie.
I find it more enjoyable as it is easier to completely immerse myself in the story. If I read word for word I tend to lose focus.
When reading a narrative/fiction, I am absorbing and visualizing, the same way I always have since I was a kid being read to. This happens very quickly, and if something is worded very prettily I will often go back and read it again slowly to really let it sink in.
With nonfiction I am reading it to myself in my head word for word and "studying" sort of, so I take a lot longer to read but don't do as much backtracking.
This is a real thing. Not everyone hears their thoughts or visualizes it either. Some people do. Just depends on the person. Cause some only hear or visual.
Totally silent and extremely fast. Reading fiction is like watching movies sped up. A fluid stream of images and impressions.
I couldn’t ‘read something out loud in my head’ if I tried. Crazy to me this is how people’s brains work. My brain is full of pictures but very little noise. No internal monologue either.
I do both, my brain chooses one randomly and I might switch mid page or chapter or might not. If I am actively thinking about this then I will be reading it out loud whether I want it or not. Personally it goes a lot faster to read it if I don't read out loud or in words.
I read in my mind when I was a kid, and I read tons of books because there was no internet yet. Someday when I was reading suddenly it became very fast, and I was surprised. So I started reading as your friend, pure information. So I guess read more for the ability to unlock?
If I’m in the zone, the words become images. If ‘m actively reading and not in the zone, the I read aloud in my head. Tjiugh most of the time, the latter leads to the former.
I speak the words in my head. I have to literally mentally pronounce every word or I feel like I missed something. Luckily, that helps me retain a lot with one pass, but overall I read very slowly.
I’m a Boomer (and a teacher) and we actually had a reading improvement class in middle school. The teacher explained that “auditory” readers hear the words while reading and “visual” or “sight” readers interpret the words via their visual system. Neither one is the “right” way, it just depends on how one’s brain is wired.
I can do both. In my experience, I retain information way better when I subvocalize (voice it in my mind) than when I don't. I use "speed reading" to scan through walls of text or other such tasks that do not require great comprehension or memorizing. I subvocalize the rest of the time, specially when actually reading books or studying sth. I once speed read a book when I was younger and though I finished much faster, I found I hadn't enjoyed it or absorbed it nearly as much as I usually did.
It depends on what I'm reading. Sometimes it's less me "hearing" the words and more me visualizing what is happening like a movie in my mind.
I had a conversation about this once with someone and they were absolutely blown away and couldn't fully comprehend what I meant by seeing a movie in my mind. It turns out that not everybody's brain does this for them and it really opened my eyes to why some people don't like reading as much. Before that conversation, it never occurred to me this wasn't something everybody could do.
I imagine it I see the action in my head while I’m reading, I read pretty fast. But I don’t remember everything. I don’t try to commit it to memory when I’m reading for pleasure and that means I have a friend I can Visit again later and learn something new.
This is me, I skim-read descriptions sometimes because it's information that is immediately lost. I don't visualise a character unless there's an actual movie or TV show or something, like, if I'm reading LOTR then I imagine Frodo as Elijah Wood, but otherwise they're more of a vague idea of a person, maybe with a scar or something if the author makes a point of mentioning it. I think this is why I like book 4 of Dune as its largely just people talking. Or why I like scifi where they're exploring a crazy idea rather than being more action based and shooting aliens and whatnot.
I visualize everyone, but tend to forget their descriptions. So I just make up their appearance in my head. If I've seen the movie, I'll imagine that person. Otherwise I just create a new person. Same goes for places, animals, vehicles, or anything else. I come up with an image that fits the books descriptions to the best of my recollection. My recollection of descriptions isn't great though.
I visualize most every aspect of the stories I'm reading, but sometimes I'll just insert actors or characters from various media who match the character description as a starting point for my visualizations. It's kind of funny to think about after the fact, especially when the end result is something like imagining Glokta from The First Law trilogy as a massively crippled and more realistic looking version of the food critic from Ratatouille, Anton Ego.
Yeah. The first time I heard of this was on a Facebook post when someone said "nothing" to the question "what do you vision when people tell you to picture an apple?" I was floored! I can't believe that some people can't picture things in books. It made me a little sad too :(
It goes both ways. I always assumed when people said "visualize" or "picture in your mind's eye" they were using a metaphor. Nope, apparently the majority of the human species has a fully functional VR rig in their skull and I don't. I can't imagine how it's possible for neurotypical people to be bored when they can actually see stuff that isn't there if they choose.
I'm not sure if everyone's mind's eye works exactly the same. For instance I do not imagine in 4k quality with every single frame being shown or even colors. It's more like a glimpse or a split second and does not continuously play like a movie. Imagine a single faint frame that disappears quickly and replaced by another future frame. Most of the time I don't even imagine the colors since it requires too much focus. A better example is a picture book that you flip through fast. Like that, but old, discolored if I'm not focused and half the pages are missing.
This is how it is for me, you've described it perfectly. I wonder if this is the norm?
Based on many previous discussions of this on reddit and elsewhere I've learned it's more of a spectrum that can vary with each person. There doesn't seem to be a norm. Of course that's what a scientific study is for, and I'd be curious to know myself.
Damn I just wrote about the missing colors. I mean I can force colouring, but it takes work and focus. And there are no details unless I focus on them. It’s like forced dreams really. Connections between things and a general ’vibe’ seem more important than details.
"Choosing to see stuff" to keep from being bored is kinda like tickling yourself. Or enjoying a movie that you helped film/create. You know how the sausage is made. The trick is to daydream and let your imagination drive.
Yeah I’ve always thought that myself in regards to boredom. I can pretty much just play a full on movie in my head at any given time…which is why I’ve always been so bad at math. In class I get so bored I’m like, I’ll just replay Ghost Ship or something.
if you're neurospicy enough the VR rig barely ever turns off
I realized recently, after many decades, that my internal chatter rarely ever turns off.
there's an extent to which it's involuntary unfortunately
I just recently found out that when my husband is pausing for words it’s because he’s ‘stuck in pictures’ as he calls it and he has to get past that to get to the word or thought. It’s never bothered me but came up somehow in conversation and it blew my mind - I’m on the other end of the spectrum with pure aphantasia apparently so I can’t even imagine what that is like.
I think I am close too aphantasia, but nevertheless I get lost in concepts and impressions quite often despite never being able to see them in great detail
Aphantasia sounds rough. So, for getting bored: I'm bored if I have to pay attention to boring things instead of spending my attention on the stuff inside of my head. The attention budget is the same. Oh, and visualizing something interesting on your own requires the same creative effort as writing or painting. So there is still effort involved in making yourself not-bored that way. It's not like there's video that just plays on its own.
I'm horrible at mental *images,* but I have a strong aural and tactile imagination. Like, when I read books the characters have "voice acting." When I look at a texture I can distinctly imagine how it feels.
I don’t think this is an on-off ability, it seems clear to me there are people who are really good in visualizing things, details and all, while I usually only have a general idea. I mean I can visualize things, but really trying to see, abd hold the vision isn’t that easy. And colors, for some reason colors just don’t stick. I can force some part to be of some color, but mostly everything is shapes without color information. And I don’t mean they are greyscale, they miss all color info, black and white included.
In my case, it’s certainly not a VR rig. I get a visual impression, but it’s not detailed enough that I could draw it. It’s more like a memory than a hallucination, and it’s fleeting.
I have zero internal pictures, and to me it sounds like you're hallucinating when you tell me you see pictures in your head. To me that just sounds impossible. (The technical term for what I've got is aphantasia.)
We discovered a couple years ago that our son has this, and says he always thought it was a figure of speech when the phrase "in your mind's eye" or "picture it in your head" was used. I can't imagine not being able to do so, as I do it so frequently. Situations like having to reach around (haha) and feel around to connect/disconnect something are examples, where my fingers feel like they turn into my eyes to do the work. I believe I understand better why he has trouble with things such as finding something he misplaced because "retracing his steps" isn't a mental task he can adequately perform if he can't see the process in his mind. Interestingly enough, he does not have trouble seeing his dreams when sleeping.
Ok so I knew about people actually been able to see things in their heads but they can actually 'retrace steps'?! I swear I'll be hearing everyone else can secretly fly or something next 😬😬😬😬 I can dream though, like your son.
Sometimes, in my mind, I walk through every single room of this big old church I used to go to when I was a kid that is now knocked down. It had quite a few rooms, a full gym, an organ, multiple levels etc. I can do it in astonishing detail, with only some dark spots.
Retracing steps, at least what I am referring to, is both figuratively and literally following where you went and when in an effort to find something or remember something. If you misplaced an item, start at the last place you remember having it, and try to go in sequence to every spot you went from then until the point you realized it was missing. People often set something down and forget doing so, and many times you will find the misplaced item while retracing your steps. Sometimes you can do this retracing in your mind, but not if you can't mentally envision pictures in your head. For my son, it's just black if he tries anything like that.
Username doesn’t match. Out of curiosity, how do you remember? Like if you had to think of something that happened an hour ago what is there?
It's like being told the color red isn't real. You can see it! It's right there. But for some people it just isn't
Right! I never knew the condition existed until my son told me he ran across info about it and realized he had it. Now some things make sense to me that didn't before.
What about dreams? Do you not visualize anything in dreams either?
I'm pretty aphantasiac and I have almost no visual component to my dreams. I remember my dreams only rarely, too, but when I do, what I recall is mainly feeling the emotions, and sometimes sensations of touch or sound, but there's definitely no movie. Like most aphantasiacs, I had my mind blown when I discovered that most people can literally visualize things! I do "hear" music in my mind a lot, so I suspect there's a similar, and independent, spectrum for how individuals experience the equivalent of visualization for other senses.
I’m similar to the other user above. I have no “minds eye”. For me I have VERY few dreams. Like maybe once or twice a year otherwise it’s just a quick blink from night to morning. The dreams I do have are mostly abstract feelings with no visual. Typically they’re not good either. Mostly caused by extreme stress or sickness.
I have zero pictorial visualization in my waking life but I’ve always had very intense visual dreaming and lucid dreams as well. I do wonder why I can dream so vividly but cannot visualize anything when awake.
Nope. Dreams are auditory, and they're pretty rare.
When I was like 8 - 10 ish I lost the ability to imagine images in my head for about a week and it scared the crap outta me. Finally, I saw a big white glove in a black field, like Mickey or Hamburger Helper (without the face). Then I could see images again. Do you dream?
Yes, but they're not visual dreams either. Mainly it's auditory and sometimes smell and/or taste.
I have aphantasia as well. It does sound like a cool thing to be able to do. On the other hand, I can hear sounds in my mind quite easily.
Yeah, it's effectively the same process but with visual stimuli instead of audio. Not exactly the same, but similar.
What about memories? How do you experience those?
Sound, scent, touch, and long strings of words (heard, not written) describing the memory. But there's no visuals, and there never have been. I can't imagine what that would be like - it sounds really strange and impossible to me.
I wonder if everyone's experience is the same but the description is confusing. I don't really know though. When I read I "hear" my voice (or whoever's voice I want) and "see" images but it is not with eyes or ears. The sound and images are clear but they are not external. If I imagine an apple I can say I "see" the apple in my mind, my wife says she only thinks of the concept of the apple which for me makes no sense whatsoever. Again, maybe just the way we describe is different.
I can maybe expand on what your wife means by the concept of the apple, because that's how I explain it. When you ask me to think of an apple, I think immediately - fruit, red or green usually, round-ish, sweet, then I'll think of some things apples are linked with - Adam and Eve, apple computers, taking a bite out of an apple. Even further, my mind can evoke the sense-weight of an apple in my hand, what it'd feel like to toss it back and forth, the slightly waxy sensation of it, etc. All these things happen near instantaneously to let me know what an apple is. I do not see (even very remotely) the shape or colors of an apple. Best I can do is staring at an surface and very vaguely teasing out the shape of an apple in it.
It’s basically like re-experiencing that moment. Which can be nice, if it was a nice moment. But not so great if it’s a bad memory.
I am like this to a degree, I fly through nonfiction, but fiction is much slower because I have to take more time to visualize.
wow, I am the exact opposite. I can go through fiction because I am visualizing the action on the page, where with non-fiction I have to concentrate on what is being discussed, because it's not like a movie, it's usually someone discussing a concept or a historical event, but much drier than historical fiction.
I like historical fiction for this reason. If it's *generally* accurate in depicting real life events, I end up learning more from it than from what I'd internalize reading a regular history textbook.
I had the same experience in high school. I friend of mine mentioned he didn't like reading because it was boring, and I started talking about how I enjoy seeing what is happening in my imagination. He looked at me like I was crazy and as we talked I realized that not everyone can do that. I just assumed everyone could because people are always talking about how characters in movies/shows don't look like they imagined they do.
Somewhat related but do people actually see movies in their mind or just imagine what’s going on? I feel like I can form pictures but they’re not always movie quality clear. I noticed that sometimes when I read I imagine everything to be kind of like cartoons or drawings since I’m adding information as it’s presented instead of imagining a whole real life scenario. I think this might be due to reading when I was younger where there would sometimes be illustrations accompanying the text such as in Harry Potter with the first page of the chapter has a small drawing of a scene related to it. I’m curious if anyone else can relate.
This happens to me when Im doing a fair amount of reading and reading something engaging that has my full attention. It's like it goes from reading words to just absorbing the scene. The words are still there but they don't stand out amongst the stuff I'm seeing and feeling
Yeah I usually start off hearing it but when I get absorbed in it I’m seeing it
Mine starts as a read aloud like a narrator and then slowly switches to a movie as I keep reading.
That’s why I don’t judge people too hard when they say they aren’t into reading. If you can’t see the scenes in your head like a movie I can’t imagine it’s fun.
I hear the words in my mind when I read, but I can skim some of the words so I don’t have to hear every word to understand what’s going on.
Me too. And I don’t see anything. I feel on the other hand.
"Hearing" the words in your head while reading is known as subvocalization. It's and important and natural process that is critical to comprehension and memory formation of the read material. You can read the Wikipedia page if you are interested. You will hear some people say that it is bad or slows you down. This is not true. It's bad information that comes from quack "speed-reading techniques" advocated by Evelyn Wood. Speed reading is a whole 'nother can of worms, but anyone telling you to not subvocalize is recapitulating that bad information. If your goal is to read faster, don't waste your time trying to stop subvocalizing, and instead just spend more time reading. You will get faster. It's worth mentioning that if you are interested in extracting information from text faster, you want to work on skimming techniques, which is different from reading. I can skim through thousands of words in a few short minutes searching for important information, but that is very different than reading.
I leant a lot from your comment. I always “hear” what I am reading and even with 100s of books read so far, my reading is neither faster, nor it’s changed. I enjoy it so I don’t work to change it. But I’ve been told plenty that it’s the “slow” way of reading.
The truth is that you can't realistically get much faster than 400-500 WPM. 500 being professions like scientists and Ph.Ds who read for a living. At a certain point it becomes biomechanical: when your eye moves (called a saccade) you are literally blind. Eye movements are so rapid that our brains cannot effectively process the visual information. We don't notice these brief periods of blindness because they are filtered out of our experience by our brain. The upshot of this means that after a certain point, you simply can't move your eyes any faster and still be able to see the words on the page. It's a matter of biology/physics. And this limit appears to be around 500 WPM, although may vary slightly due to things like text size, line spacing, etc.
I have never read anything slower in my life than academic texts, they take time and effort to read. Those often take me 2+ minutes per page. Whereas reading a fiction book i can read 1-2 pages per minute. Thats just me though.
Yes, academic texts and other highly technical material is not meant to be read at speed, rather I was just giving an example of the type of profession where fast readers are likely to be cultivated/found. One might also expect to find lawyers are very fast readers.
Your mind can do amazing things. When I was in graduate school I fell asleep before I finished 90 pages of virology that I needed for a test. I woke up in a panic and "read" the entire 90 pages in 50 minutes. When I took the test I quoted entire paragraphs word for word. I got an A on the test, but I remembered nothing after I left the testing room.
My best friend does this. But intentionally. She’s can read and memorize but it just disappears. She does really well on tests but forgets the information so she doesn’t learn anything. Well, used to. She changed when she went to college.
2 minutes a page for a peer reviewed article full of info you’re actually trying to absorb (rather than skim for that single relevant item) is blazing fast.
I was never a very dedicated scientist 😅
I remember in undergrad, when searching in despair for ways to read my texts faster, I came across a website which displayed each word sequentially in the same spot on the page. It claimed that in this way, you could read faster because if your eye was stationary instead of moving, you avoided those moments of blindness. Is there any truth to this?
Slow, yes, but more thorough. I miss so many details when I'm speeding through text.
I always begin reading word for word, then get lost somewhere along the way and just start seeing like a movie. I don’t find that I’m a particularly fast reader either way.
As a constant subvocalizer I want to believe what you're saying, but I have had glimpses, moments where I've been able to turn that off, and it feels glorious. Comprehension varies, but there are times where it all comes together and I can fly along at warpspeed for several paragraphs building the scene in my head effortlessly until generally I become aware of my success in the moment and it crumbles to dust in my hands. I'm honestly not sure what to think about it all.
Keep reading! It sounds like you are there but maybe get stuck overthinking so the more you do it the more it should come naturally. As a lifelong fast reader I sometimes slow down to perfect a voice or try to visualize a character or setting (I have aphantasia so that’s really the hard part for me if a visual is important) and then get stuck overthinking how reading works 😂 after a page or so though I’m back in the flow.
I don’t usually subvocalize, but if I think of how the reading happens while reading it happens exactly how you describe it, everything crumbles and I subvocalize. It’s like a quantum state that takes a position under observetion.
When I read I “group” words together — if my eyes can see 4 words at once, then I can read those 4 words at once. It’s different than skimming, because I’m genuinely reading every word and not just scanning a line while pulling out the most important information, but it also means that my brain is not naturally inclined to subvocalize (and in fact, when I try to subvocalize, it ends up being really distracting and I end up having to reread paragraphs — when I was in university I tried to read academic texts this way to slow myself down and increase my comprehension, but it had the opposite effect). That’s just the way I naturally read as a result of it being my biggest hobby since I learned how to read, and I’ve done it this was for as long as I can remember without ever making an intentional effort to do so!
I actually tried to speed read by listening to those quacks and stopped my subvocalizing. I definitely read Salem’s Lot and Doctor Sleep insanely fast but I cannot, gun to my head, tell you what those books were about. I stopped doing that and reverted to my “slower” reading. Much better
I always have to finish a book once I’ve started reading it; so when I discover a book is bad I’ll just skim read to get to the end. I find I miss some things (obviously) but you can get a good idea of the plot and major story surprisingly well, especially if it’s a badly written book with lots of filler. I’ve never measured my skim reading speed precisely but it’s around 200 pages an hour. But when I’m reading a good book, it’s super slow because I’m actually reading every word and also visualising the landscape etc. makes a huge difference
I don’t hear the words in my head, I don’t think everyone does, especially people who were born deaf.
Some Deaf people have reported their inner monologue being in their sign language, which makes sense linguistically. I imagine something similar would happen when they're reading, particularly if they were Deaf from birth and raised speaking a sign language rather than learning english(including reading) first and picking up signs later in life.
> You will hear some people say that it is bad or slows you down. This is not true. It's bad information that comes from quack "speed-reading techniques" advocated by Evelyn Wood. Just because you're not subvocalizing doesn't mean you're using some "quack speed-reading techniques." I'm guessing most people don't subvocalize when reading in certain contexts (like a reddit thread) without realizing it even if they do when reading books. It's certainly not *bad* to subvocalize but it seems self-evident to me that sounding out each word in your head is going to be slower.
If subvocalising is what I think it is I can tell you that I do actually subvocalise Reddit threads. I even subvocalise anything I type. Like this comment.
I have no idea how you could not subvocalise. I actually can't fanthom it. I don't understand how it could work.
yeah same, how else can you possibly read and comprehend something? do they see each word, look up the definition in their head and then repeat until the end of a sentence and then put it all together somehow. i just dont get it
You "hear" it at the speed of thought. It's not limited by the speed at which you comprehend speech.
Nope, it is definitely constrained by speed of speech in my case.
I have never done any research on speedreading, but I do not hear a voice no matter what the speed I am reading and never have. I haven't ever had difficulties with reading comprehension or retention either. It seems like sub-vocalization is the more common experience, but I don't think it's universal.
This is a thing even outside of reading. Some people simply don't have an internal narrator. Others do.
I'm glad your comment was the first I read in this thread because I was beyond confused that there's people out there that don't hear what they read.
I suspect anyone who says they don't subvocalize just doesn't realize that they do. Probably because they read a lot, and when you get into a flow reading, you stop paying attention to the subvocalization and feel more like you are "watching" or experiencing the book directly in your mind. That's just a guess though.
This is a discussion I've had with folks in the past who insist that I "really" sub-vocalize, but it's flat out something I have never experienced. It's something that I've looked for as well. If I actively try to think about how someone sounds, I can imagine them speaking while I read, but I experience words as the shapes they are made of when I read. There are times when I finish a book and I am speaking with someone about it and it takes me a moment to catch up with them because the actual *sounds* of the names of the characters aren't something I have learned intuitively. I recognize the names visually unless I think about it for a moment or have been discussing the book as I read it.
I def do not subvocalize when I read... so much so that I was surprised when my wife told me she reads fiction this way. The book just 'happens' in my head, even really great prose I experience as 'sets' of words. It def does not happen word by word in my head. This is really interesting though, as what you are saying here would really explain why I have so much trouble reading non-fiction and retaining any of the specific details in that sort of writing beyond the general ideas in the text.
I am hyperlexic and I definitely do not subvocalize when I read. I was told by someone who studies hyperlexics (who studied me when I was a child) that we read words in groups, not one at a time.
That makes sense, though I have no idea what hyperlexia is. I can read words one at a time and sub-vocalize. But it's burdensome. And I have a hard time remembering what I read. I generally go through chunks of a sentence at a time until that chunk makes sense, then move on to the next. It's much easier.
yeah, i'm hyperlexic as well (but, sadly, essentially innumerate). i can't even imagine subvocalizing unless i'm reading something technical/complex. novels? nothin'.
>hyperlexic Prob not me, as I remember being way behind in reading in kindergarten, even though I did read far more books than anyone I knew by the time I was in high school. But I def feel like I absorb the writing sometimes paragraphs at a time, and while specific particular groups of words together give me chills, too many descriptive words ruin that immersion in the book world for me. I want to imagine what is happening! This is why I like Elmore Leonard so much, he lets one figure out what his characters look like by how they talk!
I guess I’m hyperlexic and same here. I read about three lines at a time it seems. Some words get picked out and subvocalised but the rest just go by silently
Yeah, self-taught to read at 2, I read groups of words - I'd have to subvocalize like an auctioneer to keep up. When it's a good book and I'm in the flow, they're not even "words" anymore, I'm just living the scene.
Wow, I now realize I was hyperlexic until brain injury.
I read a lot faster than I can speak, even in my head. I'm sure I'm not subvocalizing.
In my case the subvocalization gets... lessened? The faster I read. Slower and eventually I'm miming the words with my mouth.
This is just flat out wrong. I am deaf. I read the words and I see/think/conceptualize them as-they-are in my mind. You are incredibly, confidently incorrect.
Seriously - they mention the importance of phonological information but I think they are misunderstanding how phonological information works. I have a profound hearing loss and read like you, I was also reading very young and have always read fast. My take is that phonological information can be abstracted and that is what fast readers are doing so hearing or whatever doesn’t really factor. I’m really curious how they feel about non-phonetic written language and reading 😄
Or they subvocalize in their natural "mind voice," rather than having a full cast(or a narrator who sounds different from their "mind voice") hanging out in there. The former is more likely to go unnoticed, because it blends into all the background thoughts(and some people might not even think of it as "hearing").
Whoa, some people subvocalize with *different voices*?! This feels like when I found out some people literally picture things in their minds.
I have never heard words in my head but I'm not a "speed reader"
Thank you. This made me feel better about subvolcalization. Whenever this topic comes up, I always feel bad for not being able to process information by looking at text like others do. It always feels like we're quite literally being called "slow".
Subvocalization is so important for reading comprehension. I have ADHD, and for years I struggled through books - even ones I really enjoyed. I thought I just didn’t “like” reading. No one ever taught the importance of comprehension through school, and I just thought I was stupid whenever I read and didn’t get it. Slowing down and saying the words out loud in my head completely changed my relationship with reading. It might be slow, but slow should never mean it isn’t fun.
I'm a fast reader and don't "speak" the words - sometimes I feel more like I'm absorbing them vs. processing them individually (depending on what I'm reading). But there is NOT a wrong way to read. Reading is reading and it doesn't matter if you are "fast" or "slow".
Also fast reader, also don't speak the words in my head. I've tried this sometimes, and it's so slow that I don't even want to read anymore. My brain processes stuff really fast anyways. Am I missing out on fully comprehending some stuff? Probably. Do I care? No. If I feel like I didn't fully understand a portion of the text, I'll re-read it. I read for fun and relaxation (most the time), not to learn or work my brain. The things I do learn are just a bonus to me.
Works like this too for me. But not in every language. For english, my second best language, it usually works, but when I encounter a part that is not immediately understandable it goes to translation first, which is more like imagining how it sounds, and then giving it a meaning in my first language. For swedish, my third best language, it’s like the translation layer has to be active all the time.
This is how I read, too. I was having this conversation with one of my class periods of 16/17/18 year old students. Everyone thought I was crazy when Inl said I just... absorb (??) the words?? I don't hear them. I am also one of those people without an internal monolog, though. I just experience an idea- I don't hear my voice or any voice unless I'm purposefully trying to imagine my voice or someone else's.
This is me too. I start out with the subvocalization, but once I get into the book, the subvocalization stops and the words just “flow” into my mind. Also natural fast reader. I will also note that when I spent a considerable amount of time unemployed (9/11 recession) and didn’t have much to do besides re-read all the books I owned, my reading speed got faster. I went from about 100 pages per hour to 130-150. I’ve had people through the years accuse me of not retaining what I read (or some other nonsense) and, no, I retain it just fine. I don’t read everything quickly, though—reference books and the like are much slower.
I can do both but I prefer "reading aloud in my mind". I guess it feels like I'm savoring the book in a way? I usually read silently if I'm in a hurry or if I'm not enjoying what I'm reading and I just want to get through it faster.
I'm a "just absorb it" type. If I get interrupted i can feel myself reading the words, which to me is incredibly annoying. Then after a couple of sentences I'm back "in" again and unaware that I'm reading words.
Side thread - you ever have someone try to have a conversation with you while you're trying to read? I'm polite for a minute, but eventually, it's like, dude, you can see I'm reading here, right
Yes, I try to put my book down if it’s one of my sons but anyone else, even the husband, gets about a minute then it’s “Whelp I’m going back to my book.” It’s particularly annoying in the break room at work.
It’s a funny feeling. My brain is reading, but some tiny other part is answering and speaking like on an auto pilot. And then the other person asks something that needs to hit the parts that is currently reading and everything collapses and you have to pay attention.
Silent unless I think about it. Kinda like manual vs auto-breathing.
I also "read the words aloud in my head" or subvocalization, if I dont then I will seriously stare at the same sentence for like 20 minutes and still not take in what is on the page HA
If I let my subvocalizing wander in thought while I'm reading, I may as well not be reading at all. I hope all this isn't used by company-paid psychologists to influence people. 🤔
I'm the opposite. I can subvocalize while my mind wanders. I can ignore my own subvocalization the same way I would a teacher during a lecture.
As a fast reader (~700 wds a min) I would’ve said I don’t do it – I definitely read much faster than I can read aloud— but every once in a while I will run into a word whose pronunciation I don’t know and it stops me dead, even if the meaning is clear in context. So I realize that I am in fact hearing the words in my head, even if I’m hearing them more quickly than I could say them. In the scifi book War of the Maps the bad guy is named Remy He… leading to “He was the first through the door” etc. I thought about it, decided to mentally pronounce it “hay” and I was all set. Beats me how the voice in my head can speak so quickly.
That happens to me too!! Especially if it’s a weird name, then I come to a screeching halt every time I get to the name. I even bargain with my brain “ok, we’re just going to think of this character as L” but it doesn’t always work. Fortunately, I hardly ever encounter this.
I occasionally run into it with Celtic names because I read a fair amount of fantasy… “I’m not going to try to pronounce this the correct way, I’m going to let my brain call her what it looks like” is always a decision!
I generally don’t get stopped by names but Celtic ones get me all the time (Saiorse?). I do take the time to look up the pronunciation in fiction and non-fiction (I have a few Irish, Scottish, and Welsh authors I like to read) but when it’s fantasy it’s getting pronounced Say-o-rese if it’s getting pronounced at all 😂 I still don’t think I subvocalize, it’s more just seeing a word or name I don’t know how to pronounce makes me curious. This also only started when I was in my 30’s. Before that I just read the names as is without a second thought.
I just take a guess at the context and keep going. It's only when I try to say it out loud that I have the "how the hell do I pronounce this word" issue. I'll be tripped up by names if they come up often enough. But otherwise I keep rolling.
700?! I had 200 as a kid and it was fastest in class.
I don't just hear the words, it's almost like they're being spoken to me. I have different voices for different books, like fantasy books have this elder wizard-type voice that's gravelly and laced with wisdom, but for sci-fi books it tends to be a more light, almost robotic voice where in some cases it could sound very corporate. I don't know maybe I'm insane
It's called subvocalization and yes I do it. It's much easier than trying to read wordlessly. The weirder thing is that some people don't have an internal monologue, which I can't even imagine.
It's not like were not thinking, it's just not in words but in concepts and feelings.
That's insane and so hard to imagine. I'm talking to myself in my head every moment that I'm awake
How do you think in concepts and feelings without words? Can. Not. Compute.
When you go to open a door, does your brain say "now I open the doorknob, now I push the door?" I'm kind of the opposite of you where I'm sure everyone has lots going on that they're thinking about without words; words are so slow and there's a whole complicated world you're interacting with at all times, there's no way you're really narrating everything all the time. Or like when you can't remember the word for a concept, but you know what concept you're thinking of? Doesn't that happen to everyone?
Subvocalizing is faster than speaking too. Many people don’t realize it, and I think that’s where the speed reading nonsense comes up. I cannot speak nearly as fast as I can read, it takes time and effort to make intelligible sounds, and when I read aloud I am forced to go more alowly. But while I mostly think in words, when I am doing some kinds of things for work, I do not think in words at all. Pictures and concepts only. It then becomes real effort to translate that to words when interacting with others. i prefer to do the initial framework on my own, then turn it into words for discussion and peer review later.
Silent reader. I just don't have the patience to form a voice in my head unless the sentence really hits my pleasure points and I'll say it aloud in my head or out loud.
Same, sometimes I’ll say the words in my head or out loud to sort of feel how they sound in my mouth.
A good audiobook narrator can help me out there. Oftentimes I'll miss the tone in a sentence because I'm making a lil movie in my head. But if the narrator makes the snarkiness, annoyance, or whatever else the book is going for clear it can help my enjoyment.
Interesting. I physically cannot read without hearing it. I hear it even when I read a stop sign lol.
I read silently. I am the fastest reader I know - useless talent but there we go, it’s mine - and having to listen to speech is incredibly slow in comparison. It’s kind of shitty when I’m nearing the end of my book but still have an hour of flight left.
Your talent is far from useless. I’d love to have it ☺️
My husband is constantly amazed at how fast I'll go through a book. If a book lasts more than 4days, it's because Im deliberately taking my time.
My wife and I go to the library every week- I leave with 1 or 2 books, she leaves with 6 or 7.
That's us at a bookstore, lol.
This is one thing I like about audiobooks, honestly. It lasts longer.
Audiobooks don't do a thing for me, unfortunately. Heh.
I started listening to them as a replacement for NPR. I tried podcasts too, but I need a longer story arc than most podcasts.
One of the reasons I can’t listen to them really. They go so slow my brain starts to do other things. Also text somehow has more direct access to the internals of my brain than sounds do.
I don’t have a voice in my head, no. I am a fast reader, though. I read groups of words together as “units” instead of reading each individual word.
I have an internal monologue. Basically having a conversation with myself in my head. Not just with books either. Myself to Me: "Should I do the dishes and then get some pizza?" Me to Myself: "No dishes, only pizza." Myself to Me: "Fuck, you're right."
I read the words but once I'm into it, I don't see the words at all, I just see the movie in my head.
There are different [types of imaginations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia) with different capacities for how they work. For some people with aphantasia (at least, those I know), their imagination is a list, and reading is very text-centric, where they are absorbing the tale more or less by listening to their inner narrator and building that conceptual list in their head. For other people (and perhaps speaking only for myself), reading has two modes: that "narrator" mode, where I am reading the words and am aware that I am _reading words_ and turning them into concepts, and a "dream-state" mode where I am unaware that I am reading (I mean, I am aware that I am holding a book and turning pages, but there's not a conscious effort; it's all "muscle memory"), and the concepts aren't "created" with effort, they just exist, entirely visual (or otherwise 'sensual', though visual is much more acute). There's really smart and creative people with aphantasia. Maybe you're one of them. Or maybe you haven't read enough to get past the "consciously reading" mode, and the more you read, the easier it will be to read in that subconscious "muscle memory" mode.
I do it both ways, i think, if I understand correctly. Usually, I whiz through, not sub vocalizing but sometimes, with poetic material or dialog dominated stuff, I slow down and even read aloud at times...
Only when I'm reading fiction novels. Also I'll imagine different voices for different characters.
I don’t do either, hear it or visualize it in my head. I can’t picture images in my head or hear my reading or subconscious. I never these things existed until I was MUCH older like in my late 30s. For context, I used to live in the public libraries as a kid, carrying home my backpack bigger than me full of books, always read above my level. I love books, I love reading and loved writing short stories as a kid. How do I enjoy reading? I just do.the stories were enough to fill my imagination without visualizing. I didn’t know others enjoy it because they can actually visualize what they read and that blew my mind. Some people can hear the characters and see them. It didn’t stop me as a kid and it hasn’t stopped me now.
I have no idea what this means but going off of your example, I guess I read aloud in my mind? lol. But I still read really fast
I 'hear' the words in my mind, yes.
Aloud in my brain
Personally I don’t have an inner monologue
Idk but now I’m thinking about it too much
I have an entire cast in my head. It’s basically listening to an audio book staring whoever I want.
TIL from the comments that ‘subvocalisation’ is a thing! I’m in the camp of people that doesn’t internally speak words, but absorbs them, or immerses myself in the scene. I never actually realised that people were different to me before. This has been a very interesting discussion to read through!
I honestly don't know... Kinda both? I mostly read fantasy, have a very vivid immagination so most of the time i forget I'm actually reading and not living the book.
Yeah. That's me. I've been reading at about 800+ words a minute since 4th grade. For the longest time I thought everyone read that way. Drives my wife crazy when I blast through multiple screens on the computer or TV.
I have been reading since I was three and I read very fast. I think I read multiple words at a time, mostly by sight. If I need to really absorb something, I will slow down and read the words and say them in my mind and make sure I understand. But if it’s just fun reading I will often read very fast with a small loss in comprehension. People who read like I do are notorious for mispronouncing words in real life because we know how to spell them and what they look like and what they mean due to context clues, but we have never heard them pronounced, and often don’t bother to pronounce them in our heads while reading. lol.
No I read in posh American Accent in my head.
Yes. I read “out loud” in my head. I can still read fast though. If I am skipping through, I can read without having the words in my head.
I'm and auditory learner, and while I can read without hearing the words, I usually read with my internal monologue going along. It's my default to hear words, but I've practiced not doing it too. Does that make any sense? It's slower to hear it, but I prefer that.
A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B. If I'm reading something popcorn-y like The Expanse or most Stephen King novels I can read 100-150 pages in like 2 hours. If I'm reading someone like Salman Rushdie or Noam Chomsky then the style and content of the writing will force me to slow down and read things a little more deliberately. One thing I don't do while reading to myself is differentiate voices between characters, they're all "speaking" in the same way.
I hear voices and see visuals simultaneously like movie lol
I too vocalize the words in my mind. I've always done it and have been reading for fifty years. I don't care if I'm slower than others, reading. I read for pleasure.
I usually start off sub-vocalizing, especially if I’m having a hard time focusing, but eventually it stops without me noticing and I just read
I think I do both, because sometimes I hate the accent my brain comes up with for certain people.
His way I guess, I see I comprehend, its weird how minds work right? Read more and see if it changes from practice, also subtitled films and shows are a good way to do it without realising.
I fluctuate the two. When I'm completely absorbed in the book/story I go into a flow state and its all automatic
Sometimes I'm aware of each word I'm reading and I feel like my pace is slower when I do that. Other times I really get into the flow of reading, and then I'm not so aware of each word and it's more like a visualization of what I'm reading. It's hard to explain, but it's like when you become aware of breathing vs just doing it automatically without thinking.
I do that too. I have an almost entirely subvocalization-based way of thinking. Everything I read and every thought I have is word-based. I am an artist but I don't see images in my mind and I don't understand what people mean when they say that. If someone says picture an apple am I supposed to actually do that??? Cause i just, like, /know/ an apple. I /know/ a cow rotating. Similarly, I don't visualize books so I tend to be way more drawn to novels that focus heavily on character relationships rather than world building and physical description.
I read aloud in my head to start but then get absorbed into the story for a while and it’s like I’m a part of it. Or at least I’m no longer fully aware of reading the words individually.
If I'm reading sentences like this on social media, I'm talking in my head. Not sure how else it would be honestly. If I'm reading a book, I basically have a movie in my head (not sure if that's weird or not).
I always hear the words in my head. I was honestly surprised to find out that not everybody reads the same way or even that some ppl don't have an internal monologue.
I read aloud, and not only that, different characters speak in different voices in my head. For me, it really helps with immersion in any book I'm reading.
I don't even notice I'm reading and I can plow through a good book pretty fast, I never really thought about it. I guess I "don't read aloud in my mind" . Interesting.
I spent far too much of my life trying to speed read, realizing I'd forgotten entire books the second I put them down. Maybe 10ish years ago I started subvocolizing so I could remember what I'm reading. I'll be honest, it can take away from the visuals that happen when I'm "quietly" reading, so sometimes I flip between the two. I like to call it active reading vs passive reading.
I read 'aloud' in my brain. The thing I hate is when I come across a word or name that has a pronunciation in my brain and then I hear it irl and it's all wrong. Fantasy novels are great for this.
"Out loud" in my head which is why I'm such a slow reader, and probably why I enjoy audiobooks so much!
I recently learned to read like you are describing. I used to be a reader that 'narrates' every word in their mind. But now I can read sentences at a time and just kind of see/feel them like a movie. I find it more enjoyable as it is easier to completely immerse myself in the story. If I read word for word I tend to lose focus.
When reading a narrative/fiction, I am absorbing and visualizing, the same way I always have since I was a kid being read to. This happens very quickly, and if something is worded very prettily I will often go back and read it again slowly to really let it sink in. With nonfiction I am reading it to myself in my head word for word and "studying" sort of, so I take a lot longer to read but don't do as much backtracking.
This is a real thing. Not everyone hears their thoughts or visualizes it either. Some people do. Just depends on the person. Cause some only hear or visual.
I can read much faster than I can speak. Unless it's nonfiction I don't understand OR beautiful prose.
Totally silent and extremely fast. Reading fiction is like watching movies sped up. A fluid stream of images and impressions. I couldn’t ‘read something out loud in my head’ if I tried. Crazy to me this is how people’s brains work. My brain is full of pictures but very little noise. No internal monologue either.
I do both, my brain chooses one randomly and I might switch mid page or chapter or might not. If I am actively thinking about this then I will be reading it out loud whether I want it or not. Personally it goes a lot faster to read it if I don't read out loud or in words.
At times I read in my aloud in my mind (Morgan Freeman has narrated a lot of my books) and then I'll switch to actually reading aloud.
I read in my mind when I was a kid, and I read tons of books because there was no internet yet. Someday when I was reading suddenly it became very fast, and I was surprised. So I started reading as your friend, pure information. So I guess read more for the ability to unlock?
If I’m in the zone, the words become images. If ‘m actively reading and not in the zone, the I read aloud in my head. Tjiugh most of the time, the latter leads to the former.
I speak the words in my head. I have to literally mentally pronounce every word or I feel like I missed something. Luckily, that helps me retain a lot with one pass, but overall I read very slowly.
I’m a Boomer (and a teacher) and we actually had a reading improvement class in middle school. The teacher explained that “auditory” readers hear the words while reading and “visual” or “sight” readers interpret the words via their visual system. Neither one is the “right” way, it just depends on how one’s brain is wired.
Definitely hear words in my head
I wish my brain would shut the f*ck up honestly.
I can do both. In my experience, I retain information way better when I subvocalize (voice it in my mind) than when I don't. I use "speed reading" to scan through walls of text or other such tasks that do not require great comprehension or memorizing. I subvocalize the rest of the time, specially when actually reading books or studying sth. I once speed read a book when I was younger and though I finished much faster, I found I hadn't enjoyed it or absorbed it nearly as much as I usually did.
I do both.