What will happen if you accelerate one and a half times?
You can listen to podcasts and watch videos at a higher speed, but how does the brain react to this?
My friend Maggie looks and listens at a speed of 150%. At first it was instructional videos and recordings of meetings that she had to watch on working at Google. Then she began to listen at high speed to podcasts and audio books that Maggie filled in for two hours on the way to and from work. She estimates that she manages to listen to 10 hours of audio per week — a couple of books a month.“It's like adding a game element to reading: at a higher speed, I can listen to the book faster - which means I can learn more in the same time,” says Maggie.YouTube, Audible, podcast apps, and now Netflixallow you to speed up multimedia playback. Proponents of accelerated viewing and listening argue that the speed of 125%, 150% and even 200% increases efficiency and saves valuable time - and you manage to do and learn more. But do you absorb the same amount of information at that speed - and does it bring as much pleasure?It may seem that the fashion for such an “acceleration” is a child of the Internet era, but the idea of ​​quick listening was born in the 1960s, when scientists found out that we read about twice as fast as we say.Translated to Alconost“The average adult reads about 275 words per minute, and speaks at a speed of about 150 words per minute - we see an obvious discrepancy,” says Raymond Pastore, assistant professor of teaching, training and secondary education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. “At the same time, this information is processed in much the same way. So theoretically, we should be able to listen as fast as we read, while maintaining the same level of understanding. ”In several studies, Pastore showed that students' understanding of the lecture does not deteriorate if we compress speech information by 25%, which corresponds to an acceleration of 1.33 times. Other researchers report similar results: the level of understanding of information remains unchanged at an acceleration of 1.5 and1.8 times. If you play the recording faster, the perception is sharply deteriorating: at a double speed, most people cannot recognize the words, not to mention understanding the meaning of the sentence.The idea of ​​quick listening was born in the 1960s, when scientists found out that we read about twice as fast as we say.According to Pastore, acceleration of 1.25 times (about 190 words per minute) can be considered the most comfortable option, although a person can perceive information at higher speeds: “Usually they choose acceleration of 1.25 times - both in entertainment and in educational goals, which corresponds to compression of information by about 10–25%. Most can perceive information at a speed of 150%, but usually they try not to. ”
Illustration by Matija MedvedHowever, to understand the phrase is not the same as to fix it in memory. Paul King, a professor of communication studies at Texas Christian University, found that with accelerated reproduction of speech, a person can very well follow the conversation and repeat the sequence of numbers - that is, understanding and short-term memory remain effective. However, long-term memory in this case worked much worse. The reason, according to the professor, is that the compressed presentation of information does not allow it to be processed in a meaningful way.« , — , », — . — « , , , , ».
Moreover, King found that with accelerated playback, a person can feel more anxious and get less pleasure: “At such a high listening speed, people began to get angry. Even if it was within their capabilities, they felt a lot of pressure. ”However, if you decide to “accelerate”, not everything is lost: according to some studies, you can learn to process speech at higher speeds, allocating more extensive areas of the brain for this. German scientists trained volunteers for six monthsprocess fast (300 words per minute - double speed) and ultrafast speech (600 words per minute - four times speed). It turned out that at the same time additional areas of the brain were activated, including two areas associated with an internal monologue and the study of new motor skills. Surprisingly, some people with visual impairment can understand speech at a speed of 825 words per minute - due to the fact that areas of the brain, usually designed for visual information, are used to process auditory information.Yes, it is possible to accelerate the absorption of information, but it is absolutely not necessary to do this. When Netflix introduced the accelerated playback feature, the directors and actors were outraged: they claimed that this killed an important part of their work. And my friend Maggie, who listens to accelerated podcasts, agrees with them. She believes that TV and films are a line that cannot be crossed: “For me, speeding up reproduction in this case is almost like breaking the law, because the authors expect a certain pace of narration in advance.”It's funny that TVs and radio stations have been launching songs and licensed content for 5 years with an acceleration of 5% - to insert more ads . It seems that something is more important than art.About the translatorThe article was translated by Alconost.Alconost localizes games , applications and sites in 70 languages. Native translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, project managers 24/7, any format of string resources.We also make advertising and training videos - for sites that sell, image, advertising, training, teasers, expellers, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.→ Read moreSource: https://habr.com/ru/post/undefined/
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