PhotoReading

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PhotoReading is a commercial learning product of Learning Strategies Corporation. The corporation sells PhotoReading seminars and home courses that claim to allow people to PhotoRead, a speedy process by which readers' ability to process written information is directly proportional to the amount of information on each page and the reader's rate of page-flipping. It is to be distinguished from normal reading, as it is claimed to utilise subconscious peripheral vision rather than conscious vision and thought.

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[edit] Concept

A day or two after PhotoReading a book, the reader is supposed to be able to activate the information manually by scanning the book and dipping into portions of the text which he or she feels are important. It is claimed that activation can also occur spontaneously, in which the reader gets flashes of insights related to the book, although Scheele describes this kind of activation as uncommon.

The system was said to be invented by Paul Scheele, but the company of Subliminal Dynamics claimed that Scheele stole ideas from them.[1] In response, Paul Scheele has stated[2] that he did indeed get the idea of subliminal perception from them, but that his course differed because his course makes use of NLP and "preconscious processing".

[edit] Skeptical Response

In January of 2000 Dr. Danielle S. McNamara submitted a preliminary report to the NASA Ames Research Center on photoreading. McNamara enrolled in a PhotoReading workshop under the tutelage of an expert who, in three years, had trained about 150 individuals in PhotoReading. The trainee spent two months learning the PhotoReading technique. The two participants named in the study were "(a) the PhotoReading trainee who participated ina two-day photoreading workshop, and (b) the photoreading expert who provided the PhotoReading workshop." (McNamara 4).

The study design included two normal pretests, followed by parallel versions of five reading tests employing the PhotoReading technique. One test was the Nelson Reading Comprehension Test (forms G and H) and the Verbal Reasoning section of the MCAT. The other two tests were generated by the experimenter. This study tests only difficult expository texts because "PhotoReading has been claimed to be particularly effective for this type of text" (McNamara 5). The texts used here involve subjects like physiology, perception, and biology. Each question from these texts were generated around a single idea or sentence within each text. According to McNamara "The information in the text that is targeted by the question generally requires little prior knowledge and little active processing of the text to understand" (McNamara 6).

The results of the study generally follow the pattern that PhotoReading and normal reading require a similar amount of time to complete. For example, the expert scored 37 of 38 possible questions correct with normal reading taking 19.43 minutes to do so. Then the expert took a similar test after PhotoReading the passage and scored a 38 out of 38 possible questions correct in a time of 18.13 minutes. McNamara took the same test, and scored a 92% both times. However, photoreading took 21.30 minutes whereas regular reading took 15.80 minutes. These results show that photoreading can work, but they do not support the 25,000 words per minute claims.

In a text about perception, the expert took 8.82 minutes to read the text using normal reading. Then, he photoread the text in 0.87 minutes and proceeded to read the text for another 8.12 minutes before he completed the process. In the text involving normal reading he answered three questions correctly out of eight. Photoreading, he scored only 1 out of 8 correctly. These results do not support assertions that Photoreading help one study faster and with greater comprehension than with ordinary reading techniques.

To conclude the study, McNamara noted that, "In terms of words per minute (wpm) spent reading, there was no difference between normal reading (M = 114 wpm) and PhotoReading (M=112 wpm)" (10). So why is it that so many people tout photoreading? In her conclusion, McNamara states that, "One aspect of the PhotoReading technique is that it leaves the reader with a false sense of confidence." (12).[3]

[edit] General Steps of Photoreading

The PhotoReading method consists of several steps. First, the reader puts himself or herself into an accelerated learning state through hypnosis. The reader then reads a book's table of contents, index, and similar non-essential matter, as well as glancing at various parts of the book; this is to gain an idea of the book's structure. After this, the reader stares at the pages of the book, changing page every second or so. Then, some time later (up to a day afterward), the reader begins to peruse the book to fill in the details and concepts missed by the preview and photoread steps. The reader "fills in" details by asking questions of what the book could teach, creating mind maps, scanning (glancing) down pages and dipping (reading normally) paragraphs that stand out or skittering (reading at angles instead of horizontally) each paragraph.

[edit] References

  1. ^ F., Fred (2000). Official Statement About Paul Scheele and Photoreading. http://www.subdyn.com/ Educom. Retrieved on October 27, 2006.
  2. ^ Scheele, Paul (2000). Thread - Official Statement About Scheele. http://www.learningstrategies.com/ Learning Strategies Corporation]. Retrieved on October 27, 2006.
  3. ^ McNamara, Danielle S (1999). Preliminary Analysis of Photoreading. http://www.nasa.gov/ NASA. Retrieved on January 21, 2008.

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