Speed-Reading Apps Will Not Revolutionize Anything, Except Your Understanding

Pacific Standard:

Spritz, a new speed-reading app company, suggests its technology will allow you to power through Atlas Shrugged in a day. The simple interface flashes one word of content at a time, at a rate you can pre-select. The Boston-based start-up has been operating in so-called “Stealth Mode” for almost three years, perfecting the system. The tool borrows from an older technology called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, but has been enhanced by rejiggering the alignment of the words to the “Optimal Recognition Point,” the target region of a word which allows your brain to process it. The new wrinkle, the company claims, eliminates the time your eyes squander locating the next OPR.

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Now, a new study, published last week in Psychological Science by University of California-San Diego post-doctoral psychology researcher Elizabeth Schotter and her colleagues (including Keith Rayner, one of the experts Khazan interviewed), provides even more evidence that the hype surrounding these kind of apps is mostly that.

Read the whole story: Pacific Standard

See Keith Rayner at the 26th APS Annual Convention.