One to Ponder

[gwendolyngrace]

Okay, so here's something to think about.

The other night, Joel and I were talking about living alone and the high (IMO) density of people who talk to themselves when they live alone or spend a lot of time alone. In the Gweniverse, I'm never completely alone, though, because character-muses constantly provide the opposing voice in my internal dialogue. Like Tom Hanks' character in Cast Away anthropomorphizes "Wilson," I think we as humans need someone to bounce off of, even when that someone is a figment of imagination.

So we're talking about this, and I was saying that it's often characters from books, or TV or movies, and I mentioned how driving is a huge opportunity for this process, and how often these days Will Laurence or Temeraire are my co-pilots (Temeraire because he's a very fun conversationalist and Laurence because he occupies that lovely "straight man" capacity), and that when Granby's in the back seat it's even worse.

And Joel, who's just read His Majesty's Dragon, said he didn't know who Granby was - because, as he put it, he'd "never heard the word pronounced." I said that he'd read the book - he should recognize the name.

And then he said that he never internalizes the pronunciation of proper nouns and names while he's reading things.

I find that fascinating and impossible. I asked about maps: Does he "hear" the pronunciation of streets and such when reading the map? No. He "sees" them as glyphs and then looks for the glyph that matches the picture in his memory.

Bzuh?

So... what we want to know is how anomalous that is, or whether I'm the one who's odd in always figuring out how to say people and place-names when I'm reading. I've known for a long, long time that I prefer to "hear" the words spoken in my head as I read - it's one of the reasons I'm a slow reader - but is that "normal" or is it more normal to take in the word without an attempt to "speak" it and then simply recognize it on repetition? Is it a difference in thought? Teaching? Or actual brain process?

Discuss.

Comments

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Okay. On further thought, I should add that I, too, am a slow, high-comprehension reader. But. And? I am terrible at names when I'm introduced to people: I do very, very, very much better after I've seen the name written down, so for me both things are needed in order to do either very well.

I hear just fine, btw. But it's very easy for me to tune out information that's coming to me just as sound--baseball on radio, for instance. We've long gotten our news via NPR, but I probably hear/retain half the stories, especially if there's anything else I'm doing or reading at the same time. I've taken to listening to Slate gabfest podcasts, in part to try to improve my attention to input that's just auditory.

A final piece of the puzzle from my own experience. I'm a person who can tune everything else out while reading, so much so that my spouse can find it difficult to break through if I'm reading.

I'm not sure all those pieces work in the same direction, but it seems to me that they are all parts of the puzzle.

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

And see, I can't tune out sound. Commercials? Hear'em. Jingles? Forget it. Even when I'm reading, unless I really get engrossed, if there's sound going, I will generally hear it and process it along with whatever I'm reading.

I can do names and remember people just fine, including remembering the faces of actors and recognize them from other characters they've played (I'll frequently figure out things like, "Oh! I know that guy because he was the arresting cop in blah-blah" when he was in one scene in that movie five years ago, and in a TV show after that and now is the sidekick in the big-budget blockbuster. Yeah).

But I absolutely also do things like write out lines longhand when I'm trying to memorize things, in addition to repetition and listening over and over, so yes, sometimes kinesthestic learning is important. But I still speak it in my head even as I'm writing, which is why it works for me.