Re:Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
by kellishaver on Thursday September 05, 2013 @11:36PM
(#6338540)
I cannot understand why it would slow you down, why do you think it might?
For me, I found the changing color to be too distracting. My eye was constantly being drawn away from the text I was reading to another color on a line below or above.
It may be worth noting that I only have one eye, and it's not a very good one - 20/100 visual acuity with about a 15deg. visual field.
Re:Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
by cam_l on Friday September 06, 2013 @12:21AM
(#6338641)
Amazing, it had the exact polar opposite effect for my eyes. I often have trouble keeping my place in black and white text. I find it like trying to focus on a single conversation in a pub but I end up hearing everyone at once.
If you don't mind me postulating, I wonder whether this difference is something intrinsic to the focussing effect of binocular vision, or if your field of view has maybe trained your brain to be more urgently perceptive to peripheral vision?
then again, maybe its just colour perception.. or different strokes (and thanks, I just learnt about binocular summation.. fascinating)
Re:Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
by SteveGerencser on Friday September 06, 2013 @12:40AM
(#6338697)
I slowed down considerably as well. I found myself rereading the same lines over and over for no apparent reason. After a very short time I started to get a mild headache as well. Of course, that could also be the fact that it's getting late but I usually read for 30 minutes before going to bed.
Anyway, my experience from this is that it was much easier to differentiate, parse, and scan with the ugly colours (43% faster apparently). However, my natural slowness in reading is in both understanding and committing to memory. I get the feeling that this did not help much with regard to this..