I’m now going to admit your question made me realize I’m not sure “subvocalize” refers to the same thing for everyone … I could always read in my head, but the error rate was huge. Only in my early 20s did I switch to a way of reading in my head that also does cadence and voices etc. The latter is what I mean by subvocalizing: The entire richness of an audiobook, generated by my own voice, but just so softly no one else can hear. It’s a gradient from normal speech volume, to whisper, to whispering so softly no one can hear, to moving my lips and no sound coming out, to entire subvocalization.
Anyway, my prediction is that non-dyslectics do not subvocalize—it’s much too slow. You can’t read faster than you speak in that case.
Anyway, my prediction is that non-dyslectics do not subvocalize—it’s much too slow. You can’t read faster than you speak in that case.
Maybe I’m just weird, but I totally do sometimes subvocalize, but incredibly quickly. Almost clipped or overlapping to an extent, in a way that can only really work inside your head? And that way it can go faster than you can physically speak. Why should your mental voice be limited by the limits of physical lips, tongue, and glottis, anyway?
Yeah, I myself subvocalize absolutely everything and I am still horrified when I sometimes try any “fast” reading techniques—those drain all of the enjoyment our of reading for me, as if instead of characters in a story I would imagine them as p-zombies.
For non-fiction, visual-only reading cuts connections to my previous knowledge (as if the text was a wave function entangled to the rest of the universe and by observing every sentence in isolation, I would collapse it to just “one sentence” without further meaning).
I never move my lips or tongue though, I just do the voices (obviously, not just my voice … imagine reading Dennett without Dennett’s delivery, isn’t that half of the experience gone? how do other people enjoy reading with most of the beauty missing?).
It’s faster then physical speech for me too, usually the same speed as verbal thinking.
Yeah, I myself subvocalize absolutely everything and I am still horrified when I sometimes try any “fast” reading techniques—those drain all of the enjoyment our of reading for me, as if instead of characters in a story I would imagine them as p-zombies.
I speed-read fiction, too. When I do, though, I’ll stop for a bit whenever something or someone new is being described, to give myself a moment to picture it in a way that my mind can bring up again as set dressing.
That sounds great! I have to admit that I still get a far richer experience from reading out loud than subvocalizing, and my subvocalizing can’t go faster than my speech. So it sounds like you have an upgraded form with more speed and richness, which is great!
Oh, I should probably mention that my weakness is that I cannot remember the stuff well while reading out loud (especially when I focus on pronunciation for the benefit of listeners)… My workaround is to make pauses—it seems the stuff is in working memory and my subconscious can process it if I give it a short moment, and then I can think about it consciously too, but if I would read out loud a whole page, I would have trouble even trying to summarize the content.
Similarly a common trick how to remember names is to repeat the name out loud.. that doesn’t seem to improve recall for me very much, I can hear someone’s name a lot of times and repeating it to myself doesn’t seem to help. Perhaps seeing it written while hearing it might be better, but not sure… By far the best method is when I want to write them a message and I have to scroll around until I see their picture, after that I seem to remember names just fine 😹
I was just reading about this, and apparently subvocalizing refers to small but physically detectable movement of the vocal cords. I don’t know whether / how often I do this (I am not at all aware of it). But it is literally impossible for me to read (or write) without hearing the words in my inner ear, and I’m not dyslexic (my spelling is quite good and almost none of what’s described in OP sounds familiar, so I doubt it’s that I’m just undiagnosed). I thought this was more common than not, so I’m kind of shocked that the reacts on this comment’s grandparent indicate only about 1⁄3 (of respondents to the “poll”) subvocalize. The voice I hear is quite featureless, and I can read maybe 300 words per minute, which I think is actually faster than average, though needing to “hear” the words does impose an upper bound on reading speed.
I’m now going to admit your question made me realize I’m not sure “subvocalize” refers to the same thing for everyone … I could always read in my head, but the error rate was huge. Only in my early 20s did I switch to a way of reading in my head that also does cadence and voices etc. The latter is what I mean by subvocalizing: The entire richness of an audiobook, generated by my own voice, but just so softly no one else can hear. It’s a gradient from normal speech volume, to whisper, to whispering so softly no one can hear, to moving my lips and no sound coming out, to entire subvocalization.
Anyway, my prediction is that non-dyslectics do not subvocalize—it’s much too slow. You can’t read faster than you speak in that case.
Maybe I’m just weird, but I totally do sometimes subvocalize, but incredibly quickly. Almost clipped or overlapping to an extent, in a way that can only really work inside your head? And that way it can go faster than you can physically speak. Why should your mental voice be limited by the limits of physical lips, tongue, and glottis, anyway?
Yeah, I myself subvocalize absolutely everything and I am still horrified when I sometimes try any “fast” reading techniques—those drain all of the enjoyment our of reading for me, as if instead of characters in a story I would imagine them as p-zombies.
For non-fiction, visual-only reading cuts connections to my previous knowledge (as if the text was a wave function entangled to the rest of the universe and by observing every sentence in isolation, I would collapse it to just “one sentence” without further meaning).
I never move my lips or tongue though, I just do the voices (obviously, not just my voice … imagine reading Dennett without Dennett’s delivery, isn’t that half of the experience gone? how do other people enjoy reading with most of the beauty missing?).
It’s faster then physical speech for me too, usually the same speed as verbal thinking.
I speed-read fiction, too. When I do, though, I’ll stop for a bit whenever something or someone new is being described, to give myself a moment to picture it in a way that my mind can bring up again as set dressing.
That sounds great! I have to admit that I still get a far richer experience from reading out loud than subvocalizing, and my subvocalizing can’t go faster than my speech. So it sounds like you have an upgraded form with more speed and richness, which is great!
Oh, I should probably mention that my weakness is that I cannot remember the stuff well while reading out loud (especially when I focus on pronunciation for the benefit of listeners)… My workaround is to make pauses—it seems the stuff is in working memory and my subconscious can process it if I give it a short moment, and then I can think about it consciously too, but if I would read out loud a whole page, I would have trouble even trying to summarize the content.
Similarly a common trick how to remember names is to repeat the name out loud.. that doesn’t seem to improve recall for me very much, I can hear someone’s name a lot of times and repeating it to myself doesn’t seem to help. Perhaps seeing it written while hearing it might be better, but not sure… By far the best method is when I want to write them a message and I have to scroll around until I see their picture, after that I seem to remember names just fine 😹
Oh interesting! Maybe I’m wrong. I’m more curious about something like a survey on the topic now.
I was just reading about this, and apparently subvocalizing refers to small but physically detectable movement of the vocal cords. I don’t know whether / how often I do this (I am not at all aware of it). But it is literally impossible for me to read (or write) without hearing the words in my inner ear, and I’m not dyslexic (my spelling is quite good and almost none of what’s described in OP sounds familiar, so I doubt it’s that I’m just undiagnosed). I thought this was more common than not, so I’m kind of shocked that the reacts on this comment’s grandparent indicate only about 1⁄3 (of respondents to the “poll”) subvocalize. The voice I hear is quite featureless, and I can read maybe 300 words per minute, which I think is actually faster than average, though needing to “hear” the words does impose an upper bound on reading speed.