There’s a technique that enables faster reading called RSVP – Rapid Serial Visual Presentation. This was developed initially for human research trials, enabling researchers to very accurately measure response time based on visual cognition.
A number of people have leveraged this into speed reading applications and services. The latest of which is Spritz. Most of these services prior to Spritz showed each word for an equal length of time, and centered the word in the viewing area. Spritz appears to be easier to read, however, and there are a few key things they do differently:
Each word displayed is offset. They’ve determined what they call the Optimal Recognition Point (ORP) for each word, and that point on each word remains in the same position in the window. It turns out that this point is derived from the length of the word only. One letter words are shown with that letter in the ORP position. Words 2-5 letters long are shown with the second letter in that position. Words with 6-9 letters are shown with the third letter in that position. Words between 10-13 letters are shown with the fourth letter in that position. The window isn’t meant to handle words longer than 13 letters, and Sprint claims that longer words are difficult to read in this method, so they typically split them up using typical hyphenation rules.
Word display time
A few patterns I’ve noticed, though each of these appear to have many exceptions in the script I analyzed:
- Words longer than 7 characters are given a multiplier of 30.
- At the beginning of sentences long words are often given multipliers of 140.
- The first time a long word is encountered in a text it is given a value of 140.
- Popular words and words of middling length are given values of 0.
- The first time a word of any length is encountered it is sometimes given a higher value – 110 is common for 6 letter words.
- Very few 5 letter words are given anything other than a 0.
- Some shorter words are given longer times for no apparent reason – maybe they are less used english words, or the sentence structure suggests a pause (comma, semicolon)? More analysis needed here.
- At the beginning of sentences shorter words aren’t lengthened like long words are.
- 3 and 2 letter words, like long words, are given a multiplier of 30.
- End of sentences inside a paragraph are given a 110 pause (no word displayed)
- End of paragraphs are given a 220 pause (no word displayed)
- End of sections are given a 330 pause (no word displayed)
It seems like it would be a fun project for a small display and battery – reading books on your wrist.