Saccades are even more pronounced when you view moving images. The presentation choices made by film directors and editors always impact on how the images are seen and interpreted.
We should maybe talk about frame rate some time, too - it's a similar conversation, right? Brains trick us; producers take advantage of how illusions work.
I think so, but what was going on was more subtle, but also more overt. Like, they'd plant the idea in your mind by showing a preview for an upcoming film that included someone snacking, for instance. I think it was more classical psy-ops than sneaky subliminals, but maybe David has more here.
"Saccades" explains why I'm terrible at editing (especially my own work): My eyes "jump" over the mistakes and correct them without my brain letting me register. Maybe this is why I prefer to have text-to-voice read to me as I read along with my eyes. I can hear the errors, which in turn helps me see them.
Is this the same as our brain being able to decipher words that have the letters jumbled?
The really loud/stop at the same time thing is, incidentally, super interesting! I think you've already gone down the spontaneous sync rabbit hole with me - sparrows, fireflies, and even our muscles all use some voodoo-sounding science to do these things.
I actually recall looking this up last summer when we were on holiday in Italy and kept noticing that cicadas stopped at the same time. According to what I read then, it's because none of them want to be the last one making noise, as that would make it easier for cicada-hunting birds to identify and eat the individual. But I'm not sure if there's even more to it.
EDIT: So according to my up-to-date research as of "JUST RIGHT NOW," there might also be some group rhythm responding to environmental triggers at play, like temperature and light levels. Which passes the "sounds legit" test.
My sister reads really fast. I was in awe of her reading skills when i was little (still am). The fam myth was that my mom took a speed reading course (pretty sure that was a thing in the 70s) and while my moms reading didn’t get any better, Peggy picked it up via osmosis. She told me the trick - don’t move your eyes.
That's awesome. Learning by osmosis, eh? It's like the good old "Put your textbook under your pillow before the big exam" hack, except I guess it worked in this case?
I remember a brief phase during high school where I tried to learn some of those learning hacks like improving your memory (turning everything into vivid images to hang the knowledge onto - this was before I'd heard of the "Memory Palace" concept later in my life) and reading speed. I even bough a few books and practiced speed reading. I even recall getting pretty good at it when consciously trying to keep the techniques in mind.
The thing is, it takes time for something to become an automated habit, and I ended up slipping into the old ways of reading/remembering in the end.
But speaking of the "don't move your eyes" thing - if you notice some of the YouTube shorts and TikTok videos these days, you'll see them displaying a few short chunks of text at a time in the center of the screen in giant letters. That actually makes it way easier for our eyes to follow because it doesn't give any "before" and "after" walls of text to be distracted by, and reduces the travel time (there isn't any, since it's all right there in the center, changing rapidly). That's partially how being a fast reader works, except you need to deliberately will your eyes to do this, which is trickier.
I remember seeing a text reading app that kinda did this, maybe 10 years ago. You could insert whatever text in there (maybe a link) and it would just spit it out, so you could read like 600 words a minute. It mostly worked, although you had to really focus.
It maybe tricks you into focusing, since I already understand that focusing on something yields better results! Duh, of course it does.
Saccades are even more pronounced when you view moving images. The presentation choices made by film directors and editors always impact on how the images are seen and interpreted.
We should maybe talk about frame rate some time, too - it's a similar conversation, right? Brains trick us; producers take advantage of how illusions work.
Is it a myth that they used to stick a frame of a popcorn and coke in the previews so you’d buy some?
I think so, but what was going on was more subtle, but also more overt. Like, they'd plant the idea in your mind by showing a preview for an upcoming film that included someone snacking, for instance. I think it was more classical psy-ops than sneaky subliminals, but maybe David has more here.
"Saccades" explains why I'm terrible at editing (especially my own work): My eyes "jump" over the mistakes and correct them without my brain letting me register. Maybe this is why I prefer to have text-to-voice read to me as I read along with my eyes. I can hear the errors, which in turn helps me see them.
Is this the same as our brain being able to decipher words that have the letters jumbled?
Yep, very similar. We definitely do a lot of real-time auto-correcting!
Wait a second, I thought saccades were those tiny annoying insects that get REALLY loud at night and then suddenly stop at the same time?!
Ah well, my eyes must've cicada-ed right over that definition, I guess.
The really loud/stop at the same time thing is, incidentally, super interesting! I think you've already gone down the spontaneous sync rabbit hole with me - sparrows, fireflies, and even our muscles all use some voodoo-sounding science to do these things.
I actually recall looking this up last summer when we were on holiday in Italy and kept noticing that cicadas stopped at the same time. According to what I read then, it's because none of them want to be the last one making noise, as that would make it easier for cicada-hunting birds to identify and eat the individual. But I'm not sure if there's even more to it.
EDIT: So according to my up-to-date research as of "JUST RIGHT NOW," there might also be some group rhythm responding to environmental triggers at play, like temperature and light levels. Which passes the "sounds legit" test.
I love the "just right now" ability to grab knowledge. We're smarter because we're so connected. How come everyone else isn't smarter too?
There's a ChatGPT answer for that: https://ibb.co/5Xt0W6pT
Paradoxes are fun. Frustrating, but fun.
My sister reads really fast. I was in awe of her reading skills when i was little (still am). The fam myth was that my mom took a speed reading course (pretty sure that was a thing in the 70s) and while my moms reading didn’t get any better, Peggy picked it up via osmosis. She told me the trick - don’t move your eyes.
Dang! i've heard "read the last and first words", and I can kind of do that.
That's awesome. Learning by osmosis, eh? It's like the good old "Put your textbook under your pillow before the big exam" hack, except I guess it worked in this case?
I remember a brief phase during high school where I tried to learn some of those learning hacks like improving your memory (turning everything into vivid images to hang the knowledge onto - this was before I'd heard of the "Memory Palace" concept later in my life) and reading speed. I even bough a few books and practiced speed reading. I even recall getting pretty good at it when consciously trying to keep the techniques in mind.
The thing is, it takes time for something to become an automated habit, and I ended up slipping into the old ways of reading/remembering in the end.
But speaking of the "don't move your eyes" thing - if you notice some of the YouTube shorts and TikTok videos these days, you'll see them displaying a few short chunks of text at a time in the center of the screen in giant letters. That actually makes it way easier for our eyes to follow because it doesn't give any "before" and "after" walls of text to be distracted by, and reduces the travel time (there isn't any, since it's all right there in the center, changing rapidly). That's partially how being a fast reader works, except you need to deliberately will your eyes to do this, which is trickier.
I remember seeing a text reading app that kinda did this, maybe 10 years ago. You could insert whatever text in there (maybe a link) and it would just spit it out, so you could read like 600 words a minute. It mostly worked, although you had to really focus.
It maybe tricks you into focusing, since I already understand that focusing on something yields better results! Duh, of course it does.