Just something additional.
My expectation with any type reading was to have a picture perfect memory of the book. Expecting to retain main ideas and main factual content of the book.
I carried out photoreading, with the same expectations. So I would do the Photoreading steps, religiously. But I never experienced any sparkling light or a moment which would pause me, and would flash the whole book in front of my inner eyes.
Then I somewhat gave up, and found the humble folks of this forum. Since then my motto has changed. So what did change my motto.
There are several factors, all have made deep impact on the way I perceived learning.
If we could remove the reading process that is the linear or the photoreading. We would learn the information the same way. So what did set Photoreading apart?
There are multiple factors, which makes photoreading just a bit advance than our linear method. As long as you understand this, its okay to study which method best suits your need.
I will name two major factors which is embedded in the photoreading, its spaced repetitions. Other is a bit complex to name it, or its just that I don't know what its called. Actually I am finding the article, which I am not able to find it for now. But I will explain it here.
1.Spaced Repetitions.
To study the same material over and over, to help one retain information for much longer.
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetitionPaul also talks about this in photoreading tapes. Comparing photoreading and linear reading. A photoreader will be much quicker to retain information compared to linear reading. The only problem with the linear reading has, that it takes time to actually read word by word, or in a sequential manner.
2) The Complex thing :
Let me give you and example, before I talk about it.
Why is that when you see a cute animal we pet them. And see a man with an angry face and a knife in this hand, a threat.
Because of our natural programming. What is the natural programming, its the subconscious mind or as we like to call it other than conscious mind. They have been feed this information over and over, that it has become quite natural for us, to assume that cuteness is safe, angry face probably a threat.
Similarly a person who does squat for the first time, doesn't do it properly, hence he has to repeat unless perfected, and then go on carrying weights, without any injuries. After a while this person write down the number for reps and sets. Which would help him track his progress. As days goes by, he no-longer maintains a progress log, he no longer records reps and sets. He just knows, its burning, he has hit the spot and its fine, I can do it.
What I am trying to say, that our analytical ability in the given field increases over time. All these theory that we read, is to support our thinking in that field. Once you understand this concept, we no longer need to book. We no longer need to remember those minute details, as we already know them.
I could give you a similar example, a cricket batsman or a Baseball batsman. How do they know that this ball is in perfect swing, and will cross the boundary line or the fence for a home-run. They perfected their game so much that, its just an call from the intuition.
If you were to do a linear reading, yes you would develop those core-concepts and these abilities. But photo-reading just saves your time. Period.
I will try to find this article and paste a link. As that person did a heck of a job in explaining it.
The reason why we say, that Photoreading is different than what we were taught in the school, is because we would never grasp these concepts in theory. But we were learning, just that we couldn't explain it.
Honestly there is a lot more to Photoreading what meets the eye.
