shminux comments on Open Thread, July 1-15, 2013 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Vaniver 01 July 2013 05:10PM

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Comment author: letter7 01 July 2013 08:54:06PM 14 points [-]

There's something that happens to me with an alarming frequency, something that I almost never (or don't remember) see being referenced (and thus I don't know the proper name). I'm talking about that effect when I'm reading a text (any kind of text, textbook, blog, forum text) and suddenly I discover that two minutes passed and I advanced six lines in the text, but I just have no idea of what I read. It's like a time blackhole, and now I have to re-read it.

Sometimes it also happens in a less alarming way, but still bad: for instance, when I'm reading something that is deliberately teaching me an important piece of knowledge (as in, I already know whathever is in this text IS important) I happen to go through it without questioning anything, just "accepting" it and a few moments later it suddenly comes down on me when I'm ahead: "Wait... what, did he just say 2 pages ago that thermal radiation does NOT need matter to propagate?" and I have again to go back and check that I was not crazy.

While I don't know the name of this effect, I have asked some acquantainces of mine about that, while some agreed that they have it others didn't. I would like very much to eliminate this flaw, anybody knows what I could do to train myself not to do it or at least the correct name so I can research more about it?

Comment author: shminux 01 July 2013 10:14:27PM 2 points [-]

Probably automaticity is what you are looking for. I am not sure how to force one's mind to attend to a repetitive task. One trick for avoiding reading automaticity is to paraphrase and check for potential BS every paragraph or so.

Comment author: letter7 01 July 2013 11:02:39PM *  3 points [-]

Indeed it's something along those lines, however, in the article it's represented in a positive light, where

a skilled reader, multiple tasks are being performed at the same time such as decoding the words, comprehending the information, relating the information to prior knowledge of the subject matter, making inferences, and evaluating the information's usefulness to a report he or she is writing

My problem is that, somehow, I do that, but without comprehending anything. The article linked to an interesting program in Australia, though, QuickSmart. It's aimed at middle students, but I think I could perhaps benefinit from it.