Subject: Re: Reading versus books on tape From: "Steven R. Livingstone" <srl@xxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 13:33:49 +1000This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------050509020901060708060301 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Toth, A few years ago I came across some interesting work that investigated processes similar to this. The research was investigating multi-tasking in the brain. Initially the study examined how people count numbers to themselves. Surveying a group of individuals, they found some people visualise the number in their heads, while others 'sound' the number. Next the respondents were given an audio and a visual task to complete while simultaneously counting numbers. They found that the respondents who visualised the numbers were able to handle the audio task simultaneously, but not the visual. Conversely, the respondents who 'sounded' the number could handle the visual task, but not the audio. In relation to learning, it may be that some rely more heavily on visual memory, while others use audio. Unfortunately I cannot remember any other details of the study (author, year etc). As an interesting aside for the auditory group, as a pianist I find that my ability to perform is seriously compromised when my spatial orientation relative to the keyboard changes (e.g., standing up). By this I mean, my recall of where to move my hands is lost. While I still 'sound' the music in my head, the physical act is affected. Cheers, Steven. Toth Laszlo wrote: > On Thu, 6 Jul 2006, tony stockman wrote: > > >> anecdotally I believe for myself at any rate, as a blind person and >> having used braille since primary school, braille reading is more >> effective for learning than listening to tape. >> > > I think that quite many people (including me) performs a kind of visual > learning. For example, I can recall even after years how a certain piece > of information was positioned on the page of the book. Because of this, I > can hardly imagine how I could learn anything by listening to a tape (I > have never tried it, though). Sorry, this is only "anecdotal", but I hope > somebody here can name some real study on this. > > Laszlo Toth > Hungarian Academy of Sciences * > Research Group on Artificial Intelligence * "Failure only begins > e-mail: tothl@xxxxxxxx * when you stop trying" > http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/~tothl * > -- ========((((((((({{{{{{{+}}}}}}}))))))))======== Steven R. Livingstone, BSc (Phy), BInfTech (hons), PhD incarcer "Ignorance isn't bliss, it's just easier" http://itee.uq.edu.au/~srl --------------050509020901060708060301 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Hello Toth,<br> <br> A few years ago I came across some interesting work that investigated processes similar to this. The research was investigating multi-tasking in the brain. Initially the study examined how people count numbers to themselves. Surveying a group of individuals, they found some people visualise the number in their heads, while others 'sound' the number. Next the respondents were given an audio and a visual task to complete while simultaneously counting numbers. They found that the respondents who visualised the numbers were able to handle the audio task simultaneously, but not the visual. Conversely, the respondents who 'sounded' the number could handle the visual task, but not the audio. In relation to learning, it may be that some rely more heavily on visual memory, while others use audio. Unfortunately I cannot remember any other details of the study (author, year etc). <br> <br> As an interesting aside for the auditory group, as a pianist I find that my ability to perform is seriously compromised when my spatial orientation relative to the keyboard changes (e.g., standing up). By this I mean, my recall of where to move my hands is lost. While I still 'sound' the music in my head, the physical act is affected.<br> <br> Cheers,<br> Steven.<br> <br> <br> Toth Laszlo wrote: <blockquote cite="midPine.GSO.4.58.0607061359110.27056@xxxxxxxx" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">On Thu, 6 Jul 2006, tony stockman wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">anecdotally I believe for myself at any rate, as a blind person and having used braille since primary school, braille reading is more effective for learning than listening to tape. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""><!----> I think that quite many people (including me) performs a kind of visual learning. For example, I can recall even after years how a certain piece of information was positioned on the page of the book. Because of this, I can hardly imagine how I could learn anything by listening to a tape (I have never tried it, though). Sorry, this is only "anecdotal", but I hope somebody here can name some real study on this. Laszlo Toth Hungarian Academy of Sciences * Research Group on Artificial Intelligence * "Failure only begins e-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:tothl@xxxxxxxx">tothl@xxxxxxxx</a> * when you stop trying" <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/~tothl">http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/~tothl</a> * </pre> </blockquote> <br> <br> <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- ========((((((((({{{{{{{+}}}}}}}))))))))======== Steven R. Livingstone, BSc (Phy), BInfTech (hons), PhD incarcer "Ignorance isn't bliss, it's just easier" <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://itee.uq.edu.au/~srl">http://itee.uq.edu.au/~srl</a></pre> </body> </html> --------------050509020901060708060301--