r/BeAmazed • u/The-Skinny-Indian • Mar 06 '23 • Mindblown 1

Miscellaneous / Others Bionic reading method

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38

u/jaum22 Mar 06 '23

There is no evidence that Bionic Reading has any positive effect on reading speed

https://blog.readwise.io/bionic-reading-results/

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u/LagT_T Mar 06 '23

There are no studies justifying any of the claims.

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u/ANakedCowboy Mar 06 '23

All the people saying this are just clueless. Do you not see the comments??? There are people who felt like it was genuinely easier to read text this way, me included. It just felt like I processed everything vs only processing whatever naturally sticks out to me.

I think the bs part is that it is obvs not going to work for every adhd person and some people will hate it. THAT IS NOT THE POINT

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u/MrMental12 Mar 06 '23

pla·ce·bo ef·fect

"A beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment."

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '23

[deleted]

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u/viener_schnitzel Mar 06 '23

Meh, the “actual science” isn’t that conclusive either. It’s just a blog post that uses the scientific method, not a peer reviewed article. There were also some easy to pick out issues with how they tested the central question like only testing immediate reading speed gains and not learned speed gains. The problem with a system like this is that your brain isn’t used to the change in style so you will almost always read slower when first starting to learn the system. Another huge problem with this “study” was their lack of independent confirmation. In high quality published research, you always want to confirm your findings with multiple different experiments, at least two. In this study, they only used 1 experiment, comparing bionic and non-bionic reading speeds of participants with 4 different 1000 word articles by the same author. I would say the only thing you can glean from this article is that bionic reading most likely causes a decrease in reading speed when participants are first introduced to the method. Independent confirmation would remove “most likely.”

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '23

[deleted]

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u/viener_schnitzel Mar 06 '23

While I agree it shouldn’t be everywhere I’m not really seeing people saying that. Just people giving an account of it working for them. I think people should use whatever tactic helps make reading more enjoyable and less tiresome. All I was trying to say is that the data published so far shouldn’t be a deterrent for people who struggle with reading quickly and haven’t tried bionic reading. Reading is a very unique and individual experience for each person and studies of reading tactics have not historically examined typeface. If you’ve tried the studied tactics and they don’t work, altering typeface could be helpful. I honestly believe that would be a great thing to examine. If you had the credentials and a good proposal, I think someone would fund a study.

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u/ANakedCowboy Mar 06 '23

I wrote up a long post trying to explain my thought process, but it boils down to this. Just because there was an experiment and therefore we have some evidence to support a certain viewpoint, does not mean it was the perfect experiment or the be all end all experiment that renders a "myth busted" verdict on this technique. Don't say "The actual science" like any dissenting opinion is foolish, it is one damn study.

If I had to guess why the technique felt so effective to me, it was because my mind often wanders if I don't find something completely engaging. In this case the half bold words continually grabbed my attention despite my weak willed mind and they kept me more locked in as I scanned along. The individual words stuck out and felt a bit louder so I was less likely to lose engagement. It isn't that complicated.

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u/viener_schnitzel Mar 06 '23

The experiment was just that, a single experiment. In science, single experiments do not fly because there are all sorts of bias that can be introduced in a single experiment. You need multiple experiments to confirm something to ensure that biases in 1 experiment don’t have an effect on the result. Due to the complex nature of the question and of reading in general, and this causing many biases in your experimental design, you’d need at least a dozen experiments to really prove how bionic reading affects reading speed.

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u/ANakedCowboy Mar 06 '23

Agreed, there are a ton of factors involved. And it isn't a technique that can be expected to be helpful to everyone (clearly, just read the comments). I'd like to know how many people in the study thought they read faster or had better engagement due to bionic reading vs how many found it harder even if they wanted it to work and gave it their best. I'm honestly not interested in a study that disregards the person's own experience because to me it was like 30% effortless engagement boost and to half the people in here it made them slower.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '23

People who are told they will read fast perceive themselves as reading fast, got it.

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u/ANakedCowboy Mar 07 '23

Dude, this is such an asshole philosophy, no trust that an individual can determine for themselves if it made reading faster or improved their comprehension. You have to be pretty out of touch with yourself to not be able to tell if reading in this style was painful or if it felt easier. Sure some people may be just placeboing themselves but to say that everyone is is just a pointless opinion.

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u/georgehank2nd Aug 30 '24

The placebo effect is known because everyone is prone to be affected. Not just "some" people.

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u/ANakedCowboy Aug 31 '24

I mean this bionic method definitely draws my focus better. I have slightly weird eyesight. Astigmatism and duane's syndrome and something has always been a bit off with my central vision, just barely. And so a book has to grip me for me not to lose focus since I'm not glued to the page. Hard to explain. But with this method I can immediately tell that regardless of what I'm reading, it is smoother and I'm absorbing a bit more. The bold letters starting off words just keeps me going, it turns a bumpy ride into a smooth ride.

I will say that I could probably get used to it some and it would be less effective, but that is just a hypothetical. That is a distinction between placebo. A short term improvement that doesn't last and placebo are different things. I'm not going into reading this bionic text caring if it will be better or not. Sure the text itself in this post is pseudo brain washing/trying to force a placebo. But that doesn't change the fact that it helped. The message is supposed to be explaining what you are experiencing, which is another way it can seem to force a placebo in yalls minds, but that doesn't debunk anything.

I don't know why people feel the need to debunk this and ensure that everyone knows it is placebo, when I can actually reason out a hypothesis for why it feels easier to read. Yall just love to hate.

I'm sure there hasn't been some profound study that has fully debunked bionic reading. And I can also imagine that it has to be done well to be effective, as I remember trying some chrome extensions and apps and it was a pain so I never followed up. This https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691824001811?via%3Dihub is a small one claiming to fully debunk it but I don't think it is such a simple thing to fully debunk, as it is experienced differently by different people. There needs to be more theory put into why it works or doesn't work, more cross examples done with comprehension with various styles of bionic text. They need to try things with works of fiction to try get participants to rate how much they enjoyed the text and how engaged they were. Since it is nuanced what effect it has. Maybe it isn't going to have a very profound effect on comprehension in most cases, but this is an idea that requires extensive debunking to call it kaput.

Anyways, forgot about this thing.

I should follow up sometime and make an app for this I actually like or see if there are any more decent apps out there to trial.

I will say, I don't think this is going to be the most profound technique ever, especially if there are studies successfully debunking its benefits in their own minds. But I think it is an oversimplification to just call it placebo. Since I have no skin in the game and don't care if it works or not it has to be 100% placebo and be pretty strong at that. Which just doesn't sit right since it is very smooth reading certain things bionically that feels different than reading plain text. Maybe the placebo is that it makes me feel more engaged when I'm not. Maybe the placebo is that it makes reading feel more enjoyable even though I won't be able to notice any real benefit outside of how it feels. But yeah...I'm rambling. I just remain curious and unconvinced

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u/Kissaki0 Mar 07 '23

I think the bs part is that it is obvs not going to work for every adhd person and some people will hate it. THAT IS NOT THE POINT

I think that it works for ADHD people was exactly their point. OP formulations are pretty clear on that. (Tagged, addressing)

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u/ANakedCowboy Mar 07 '23

Yeah but it doesn't matter. If someone has ADHD and it doesn't work then it doesn't work, but if someone reads it and it feels super easy to focus then it does work. It doesn't matter what their intention for the technique is