Talk:Subvocalization

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[edit] subvocalization while reading

Any chance of some references? Kappa 03:08, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would also like to see some references on the "new and improved" speed reading course theory that was previously posted. I reverted the last version of subvocalizing because I could not find a double standard definition for subvocalizing in any recent or old published prior research on subvocalization.

Regards Doug

Open up almost any speed reading book, especially the older ones. They all confuse the two types of subvocalizing. They don't mention a "double standard" definition because most of the authors have no idea what they are talking about. They all push "eliminating subvocalizing", and many students in classes who try this think that when they are attempting to "eliminate subvocalization" and still find themsevels "aware of the sounds that the words make" that they are doing something wrong. That confusion between the two (possible) definitions leads to a lot of frustration on the part of students who try to "eliminate subvocalization". One type is detrimental, the other is impossible to get rid of and is actually useful to a speed reader. It behooves an article such as this to make the distinction when the source material is muddled. Granted, the article was somewhat sloppily written and needs a complete rewrite, but reversion propogates the ambiguity... perhaps having a second part of this article differentiating subvocalization from "being aware of the sounds that words make" as being very different from "subvocalization" as a serial process of sounding out the words? - Jim Whitaker Metaphorman 05:24, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Open up any comprehensive book on reading and you will find that speed reading literature will say just about anything to get you to buy their product. The research shows that speed reading is extremely limited in its usefulness. Subvocalization is more a subject for reading rather than speed reading. However, I can explain more about subvocalization for reading in general for the sake of clarity. Cheers, DougDoctorDog


Quoted from the wikibook by Jim Whitaker:

For the purposes of this article, there are essentially three forms of subvocalization:

  1. The first form is visibly mouthing the words read aloud to oneself.
  2. The second form is imagining mouthing the words you read aloud to oneself without moving the
  lips.
  3. The third form is being aware that words have sounds associated with them, but not taking the 
  time to wait for each word to be "spoken" before the readers' attention moves to the next word or 
  group of words.

Subvocalizing in style 1 or 2 are essentially the same [...] These patterns of reading [...] tend to place an absolute limit on reading speed in the neighborhood of 100 to 150 words per minute. These readers wait for the sounds of words to complete before moving to the next word [...] No matter how slow or fast a reader reads, there is no way to eliminate type 3 subvocalization, and according to muscle detection experiments, there is no way to eliminate involuntary muscle movement in the throat that corresponds to subvocalization.

Although I'm not an advocate of speed reading, and don't agree with everything Jim has said, I am however curious about the topic and in this case I find the division into three forms of subvocalization to ring true for me. I find myself subvocalizing by method two most of the time I read. When I hum or count, either in my head or out loud, I can't really use method two, but I am still aware of my brain associating sounds with the words even when I read them very quickly. I believe this is the third method of subvocalization, which is very different from the second, because it both cannot be blocked out (nor is it helpful to try in terms of reading faster), and because it involves fully hearing the sounds just as if one was reading out loud to oneself.
I'm not sure if there is actually a clear break between these two, or if it is a continuum, for example when I read I don't think I always wait for the sounds to be fully vocalized before moving on to the next word or sentence.
I do think it's important to make a distinction between these two types in this article, otherwise it gives yet another thing to knock speed reading down for, and I think that has been done enough both here and at speed reading already. Richard001 18:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] subvocalization with radios

Instead of holding a microphone in front of their mouths, some people are trying to pick up speech by holding some sort of sensor against their necks. Supposedly (-: according to Tom Clancy novels -- is that a good enough reference ? :-) this allows people to

  • communicate without making much sound, so that soldiers can call for reinforcements without giving away their position
  • pick up speech "directly", so the sounds of machine guns, helicopters, etc. don't drown out what the person is trying to say.

Should I throw this in to the subvocalization article, or is it different enough from "subvocalization while reading" that it needs a new name (what?) ? --DavidCary 20:01, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Subvocalization & Japanese

I think this should be known:

  • Subvocalization in reading kanji: Can Japanese text be comprehended without it? (Matsunaga, S.)
  • The role of phonology in reading Japanese: Or why I don't hear myself when reading Japanese (Sachiko Kinoshita)

Unfortunately they're not avaible on internet. --GLari 21:28, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

This is a very good point. Japanese kanji are varied in pronounciation depending on the word they are used in and whether they are kunyomi or onyomi. Some kanji like the one for 'day' have a large number of different pronounciations. If subvocalization is necessary to read, which is the crux of the argument against speed reading (which is essentially just reading a little faster, without the subvocalization), then wouldn't this render most Japanese unreadable?
I can't offer much knowledge on speed reading or kanji myself, as I am only able to read a tiny portion of Japanese kanji and no longer study the language, and I have only recently taken an interest in the possibility of speed reading. I can however share something a friend in my Japanese class said to me - his host mother was reading a newspaper, and he would point out kanji to her and ask what they meant - she couldn't even describe each kanji's meaning, let alone its pronounciation, but she could still fully understand what she was reading.
Some information about subvocalization in Japanese (or Chinese, which I imagine is basically the same with regard to kanji having different pronounciation) would be very useful to the discussion of the article. Richard001 17:24, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Edit: Actually, now that I re-read my own statement, I'm not so sure about the subvocalizing part - if she couldn't vocalize it how could she read it out loud? I think it was more a case of not being able to give an independent meaning to the kanji. Richard001 17:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


Japanese is no different from any other language in the way it is processed. There are a number of books on this topic (such as Marshall Unger's "Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning") and studies that show kanji primarily indicate sound, rather than meaning, to a native speaker, and that the subvocalization is there just as in English. The nature of kanji may increase the chance that the reader assigns a wrong reading, but it's just not possible to bypass sound entirely and somehow directly access meaning in the brain. A Japanese learner who knows the meaning of a kanji but not its reading is associating it with the sound of the word in their native language.

[edit] Speed reading

It seems to me like this article is very biased against speed reading. They might back it up with a reference, but I'm pretty sure there are many speedreading references that contradict this. --Brazucs (TALK | CONTRIBS) 05:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

That's the same impression I get. Richard001 00:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The post above by Brazucs is exactly why farcical notions such as photo-reading gain acceptance in the public mind. To say that "I'm pretty sure there are many speedreading references that contradict this" illustrates Brazucs a priori acceptance of the phenomenon, despite the presented evidence to the contrary. Why would one believe in a fantastic claim without the requisite fantastic proof?

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