Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer PhotoReading Fraud ?

I will quote

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This reply was written by myself to discuss the topic of speed reading, and a product in particular called "photoreading". It claims that individuals can read up to 30,000 words a minute through using their unconscious. It is not possible and i have wrote why it is not in this reply.

I feel that it is beneficial for you guys to see since it is so heavily related to psychology, a simple search at google will bring up further information on so called speed reading.
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My reply to someone’s post who said it worked and he believes in it: different forum.

Photoread cannot work and i will tell you for the 50 millionth time why it cannot. The human brain consists of several regions, all of which are further divided into specific subdivisions that have the purpose to carry out mental tasks. The telencephalon, a subdivision of the prosencephalon, consists predominantly of the cerebral cortex.

The cerebral cortex is the place of the brain that deals with all the higher order cognitive tasks that make us humans. By this, I am referring to abstract reasoning abilities, ability to comprehend language, ability to articulate, ability to make rational decisions, understand situations, ability to distinguish between particular sensory inputs etc.

To further elucidate, the cerebral cortex is split up into lobes. The lobes are bilateral and can be seen on each hemisphere. The hemisphere is divided by a particular line known as the longitudinal fissure. The frontal lobe, which is situated at the front of the head, is primarily responsible for memory sequencing, reasoning abilities, motor movements, organisation and planning skills, speech comprehension and personality traits. The temporal lobes, which can be located at the left and right hemisphere laterals, are responsible for memory, speech articulation, emotion and hearing. The partial lobes, which are superior medial to the temporal lobes essentially, control things like spatial awareness, object recognition and sensory perception. And lastly, the occipital lobes, are located dorsal, or towards the back of the head. Its function is fundamentally to control vision and to enable us to see.

Conspicuously, the brain is mostly developed from before the birth to the preliminary stages of a baby’s life. It is these stages that are crucial in a baby’s development and they can be seen to influence an adult’s personality and mental abilities later on in life. Relating to the biology of the brain, genetic factors can of course be seen to play a big part on way an individual’s brain functions. For example, research shows that individuals from a social background that has largely been associated with education success, are likely to possess their families intellectual abilities through hereditary. Nevertheless, environmental factors can also have just as important effect on an individual’s brain development and functioning. For example, individuals who are from poorer social class backgrounds have been shown to increase their intellectual abilities and academic success when they where raised by a middle class family from birth. Consequently, this shows that the brain, with the right motivation and access to the educational materials can be conditioned to function more intelligently, if you like.

However, most functions of the brain are relatively consistent through life, and while they can be improved on, it is unlikely that you train them to be as powerful as you like. Now that you have the basics of the brain and its functioning let me get back to the speed reading question. So I have said that the brain can be shaped to function more intelligently with practice, and of course, with access to the right materials. But just how much can we increase on our genetically shaped neurological system? Recent research has revealed that the brain can actually reshape and structure itself. For example, research into brain damage patients has revealed that particular sections of the brain have replaced themselves over a period of time. This has led neuroscientists to conclude on unprecedented terms that the brain might actually be able to be changed a lot more than previously thought. In terms of the psychological aspect of increasing mental functions, it has been shown that individuals can increase their “IQ” through regular practice and through showing them alternative techniques to work out mental calculations etc.

But can we apply this trend to other mental abilities, such as reading? Of course you can. Reading is a skill that individuals can condition themselves to do faster. Techniques to do this, including frequently practising speed reading or just reading often. Or alternatively, using speed reading software or programs that offer techniques to shape the way the brain deals with large amounts of information in a short space of time. However, what you cannot do is expect to increase your reading to supernormal speeds. It is simple impossible and here is why. Speeding reading sites, such as photoreader, maintain that the reason why their programs are able to teach individuals to read extremely fast is because they use an alternative technique that more heavily relies on individuals using their subconscious. But just how true is this? It could not be more further from truth.

A comparatively similar assertion would be that humans can be trained to listen to several conversations at once. Of course it can be argued that it is POSSIBLE for the unconscious to comprehend such conversations. However, it is not possible for the conscious to comprehend such information in such a situation. Now the same principle can be applied to speed reading. It is not possible to simply take in large amounts of information and hope that your conscious can retrieve it. It is simple contrary to YEARS of research into attention. There are many theories of attention, including the Broadbent and Treisman’s models of it. The Broadbent theory of attention postulated that one’s ability to process information is restricted. It proposes that information from the senses is passed ‘in parallel’ to a short-term store. This acts like a sort of ‘buffer system’ and it preserves the information until it is able to be processed further. The information presented to the conscious (in this case the words from the text your reading) is then sent to a selective filter. The filter primarily functions on the basis of the information’s physical characteristics; hence it chooses one source for further analysis and discards any others. Subsequently, any information that is allowed past the filter comes to a limited capacity chancel. That could mean that any information we read is stored into the brain for further analysis. However, Broadbent’s theory goes on to maintain that the attention capacity is restricted and an overload of information will simply result in the information requiring longer to be processed. The other theories of attention are also very much against the idea of us being able to speed read at supernormal rates.

Let’s look at it from the neurological side of the argument. Reading is a task that involves many functions of the brain working collectively. Firstly, you have the retinas receiving the sensory input and sending information to the thalamus, which in turn, sends the signals to the occipital lobe for analysis. The occipital lobe then sends the information to the temporal lobe, specifically the Wernicke language comprehension area, where it is then understood and then sent to the Broca area, which allows us to subvocalise the text that we are reading. In the process, of reading it also invokes many things like past memories, emotion, our current knowledge of the subject etc. These are functions that quite frankly, cannot be speeded up to suit ourselves. The brain is not built for it, and even if the unconscious can store mass amounts of information, the conscious certainly cannot retrieve it.

If speed reading programs such as photoreading where deemed well-founded and indeed able to work as suggested, then every school and university system in the world would be using. The reading skills of teenagers now a day are constantly under scrutiny, with politicians and the media saying that the new generation of individuals are being failed by the school system. Furthermore, there have been countless media stories about how children in today’s society lack proficient reading skills and how a lot of people fail university because of impoverished reading skills, despite having academic ability. Therefore, if you can read 100 times faster than the national average through a speed reading program, then academics everywhere would of course implement it into there teaching schedules. It would be a revolution and within months the whole world would be introduced to it. It would be the dream of a top market-force company to get the patent rights for it. Just think of the money they would make. They would have the rights to sell it to every educational system in the world, which would make billions. It is not likely that they would turn down the offer to buy it, is it?

Alternatively, think of speed reading and the process of reading fast, well according to photoreading’s way of reading fast. Specifically, the information is sent to the unconscious at super rates and then we retrieve it. Wonderful. Now, if this was true then it would also be a revolution for things like hyponosis and other psychological therapies. If we can subliminally take in information of such gross proportions we read at mass speeds, then we can apply the same method to other situation. For example, we would be able to see more clearly, we would be able to use our memory to unprecedented levels. You could use the same method to access past memories and then retrieve them into the unconscious. Why not? It is theoretically possible, if speed reading is using the same method.

To further go on, an individuals reading speed is predominantly determined by the type of article that they are reading. If an individual is reading an article on say, advanced biology, and has no previous knowledge of the specific field of it, he of course has to slow down and perhaps ready very slow, and go back over what he has read. You cannot simple read at phenomenal rates and comprehend everything you are analysing.

In terms of you postulating that you have tried it, and it was successful, then my explanation is that you either experienced some effects of the procedure they use. Or more likely, you experienced a placebo effect. Specifically, you empathically thought that the program was well-founded, due to the marketing you read about it. Supposedly Dr’s and Lawyer’s writing about it, claiming they are reading 30000 words a minute etc. Fair enough, you believed it and your brain was conditioned to believe that it was possible, through using this software. Therefore, this bears the necessary ingredients required for the placebo effect to work. It could be that you subliminally encouraged your neurons and brain functions to work quicker as they were tricked into believing they were being trained to. It is neurologically possible. Indeed, individuals who are in pain, or experiencing mental disorders such as depression, are sometimes giving placebo drugs. The very fact that they believe they are being helped, tricks their mind into believing that the help will work. In fact, it’s proving to work in 35% of the cases of individuals giving the drug. The sample principle, I believe, could be applied to other non-medical matters. Whether this is speed reading, or jogging while drinking lucozade.

In conclusion, speed reading is not possible because of several factors, including it is contrary to psychological knowledge of attention; it is contrary to the way that the neurological system works. Indeed, reading is not just about comprehending information; it also uncontrollable invokes the activation of other parts of the brain, such as memory and emotion. And these cannot be speeded up to work at your own pace. You cannot experience emotion and comprehend language as fast as you like. You can read faster, of courses, with practice, but you get to a certain limit where you cannot go faster.

incidentally, my reading speed is 600 WPM and around about 60-70% comprehension and this is considerable faster than most of my educated peers, but if visual speed reading was possible allowing you to read 10 times fast that then dont u think the whole world would be using it. it would be invention of the century, and would have the potential to make billions."