I'm fairly sure I have two styles of reading, where "vocalising" either happens or doesn't. The vocalising approach happens when the prose style's complex or difficult, or when it's particularly rich and I want to get full enjoyment out of it. The non-vocalising approach I use for assimilating simple factual stuff or reading a book primarily for the story rather than the style, and it's considerably quicker.
The choice between the two would appear to be unconscious, and I'm fairly sure I slip from one to the other as I'm reading. (Is that more information than you needed yet?)
I suspect I have two as well, but I'm not sure it divides up like that. I *think* that I vocalise, to an extent, almost all of the time, but not 'properly', in that I don't hear things at normal speed. There just seems to be some sort of mental 'noise' going on that approximates to hearing the words.
I suspect I do this less for fiction, but that's because with (good) fiction the whole thing happens inside my head. So the dialogue makes noise, but the other stuff just happens. I noticed at a very young age that I never remembered reading the actual words of a story, but just remembered the things happening as mental images. This, obviously, doesn't apply to factual stuff, where I have a very strong impression of reading words (so I tend to remember that I saw such-&-such a piece of information on a right-hand page about halfway down, or whatever).
And right now, of course, I am hyper-aware of my reading and beginning to become confused...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 12:25 pm (UTC)The choice between the two would appear to be unconscious, and I'm fairly sure I slip from one to the other as I'm reading. (Is that more information than you needed yet?)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 02:29 pm (UTC)I suspect I do this less for fiction, but that's because with (good) fiction the whole thing happens inside my head. So the dialogue makes noise, but the other stuff just happens. I noticed at a very young age that I never remembered reading the actual words of a story, but just remembered the things happening as mental images. This, obviously, doesn't apply to factual stuff, where I have a very strong impression of reading words (so I tend to remember that I saw such-&-such a piece of information on a right-hand page about halfway down, or whatever).
And right now, of course, I am hyper-aware of my reading and beginning to become confused...