However, there is useful information in the article to consider.
On the board on which the quoted post appeared a person said this:
"There are actually quite a few experiments looking directly at how well something can be understood and retained when it is picked up unconsciously. As it turns out, the unconscious isn't very smart in this respect."
Is this true?
-Yes, I think so, because the subconscious normally can't discriminate information, debatably, that's done during activation in this case. But it's like a child, very impressionable, but it is smart in that amount of things that it can do at once. Keep the heart beating, all of processes of the body, picking up TONS of information and stimuli.
They are going to think that they will have conscious access to information that is part of a photographic memory somehow derived through the process. It's misleading.
-As far as a title for photoreading, I bet the term "speed reading" was avoided, because this isn't the situation exactly. The audience may not think that, exactly, and if you've heard the saying, "You can't judge a book by its cover," it would apply to this circumstance. The scientist going on an explanation to disprove photoreading with his limited amount of information, would be a good example of judging a book by it's cover.
Also, IMO differentiating the subconscious from the preconscious in this argument is pretty useless.
-This is a commonly debated issue, just as the theories of development arguing between stages and continuous, sequencial physical development. When you're learning psychology, you're not always learning facts, you're learning studies. It's not nearly as tangible as other sciences, like anatomy for example.
The argument presented, however, raises an interesting question: based on what we know about the brain, can the parts involved in processing visual information and the parts involved in comprehending written material communicate in a way that supports the claims made by LSC regarding photoreading?
-Is there solid proof either way? The conscious mind can pick up visual stimuli, so how would the subconscious mind be different? The common belief in a lot of cognitive psychology is that the subconscious primarily processes information of the peripheral vision, and probably stimuli in direct focus after the conscious mind has processed it. This is all debatable too.
2) developing the conscious/unconscious interface so that information in the unconscious can be brought into conscious understanding and properly contextualized.
-In my experience, it's like trying to remember something that you once knew so well but it's on the "tip of the tongue", and you look it up and your eyes hit a visual cue and BAM there is! I wouldn't say it's training it to do that, although improvement can be made in that aspect. As far as actually recalling the memories, I think that's a natural ability, because I've had plenty of those experiences, before, when trying to remember something. This is all in my experience, so it may not be true for everyone else.
The whole hype about photoreading, which is encouraged by LSC's ad copy BTW, brings focus away from what it actually is and toward misconceptions about it.
-I think this is true for the TV ad, because there was a demonstration of spontaneous activation. But besides this specific example, can you really blame LSC? The audience is actually the party that contains the misconceptions, and those can be settled by learning about the system.
I also think that we're missing the central idea, that it does work, and does have true potential in some ways. Even if you dig into the science of it, you still have to match that up with personal experience. Skepticism is good, and thought provoking, but skepticism isn't limited to photoreading alone. I think an amount of skepticism is good as long as the intent is to learn, in the end. That's why most of us are here, right?
