Friday, September 25, 2015

Thought for the Day - Hearing versus Seeing

I was watching a talk. I noticed that my eyes got drawn to the sub-titles below. Interestingly even with the sub-titles on, I kept missing the point and had to go back and forth a few times. I wondered why? Aren't the sub-titles to help me assimilate faster and more accurately?
Take the route that makes you concentrate more

While watching the sub-titles I realised that numbers became larger than what they really meant in the speech. It also somehow let me mind wander away because the words and numbers seemed to have certain associations that set my mind afloat.

To understand what he was saying properly it made sense for me to listen directly to the speaker and then process what he said quickly to make sense as it was happening. To organise the pattern dynamically. My overall understanding of the story was far better without the sub-titles which were distracting me with useless details. In directly listening I missed out on some small details (like the numbers which were only to support the main fact - but which grew bigger in the text) but I got the story right in its complete sense. Or some story at least where I had none.

Perhaps the fact that I had control over playing the video and could go back and watch it again stopped me from concentrating hard enough the first time round (when I saw the sub-titles). Or maybe I just concentrated harder when I was catching stuff coming at me straight off the speaker without another medium (the sub-title) in between.

It seems that between two choices it makes sense to go for the one that makes you process it as it comes on, even though it might have a greater degree of difficulty. The fact that you have to get it first time round makes it more effective. (You can always go back later but you still get the story the first time well enough to process it better the second time.)

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