[link.spelling and brains.visualization]

[wispfox]

Buh. No wonder I have such trouble with spelling. For those who might be surprised by this, based on my generally good spelling here - that's due to a _lot_ of work as a kid, and I still look a lot of words up. http://www.dictionary.com is _so_ my friend. I also memorized and use all those annoying rules about spelling. I also tend to have to re-read everything I write, especially if I'm tired, to find all the mistakes I made and didn't notice. (Interestingly, I _do_ generally have a good sense of what words 'look right', which is a lot of why my spelling seems to be perfectly fine)

"That's where you 'see' a complete word in your mind's eye, whether you're reading it or writing it. And if you can't visualize it, you're just winging it based on what it sounds like. In a language with as many irregularly spelled words as English, you're going to be wrong a lot of the time." (link found in griffen's journal)

Seeing a word in my mind's eye.

Right.

If any of you have ever either tried to spell something to me without giving me the time to write it down, or wanted me to tell you how to spell something without me writing it down, you've run head on into the fact that - unless it's three or four letters long, and sometimes not even then - I _cannot_ visualize words in my head.

There are some words I can spell aloud without writing them down first. My name, due to long practice. I think that's about it.

I don't know how many of you have noticed that I also don't tend to say numbers combinations as anything but individual digits. It feels... almost related to the above, but not quite, since the words for numbers (eg 'one') and the symbols used (and '1') are, in fact, a fairly effortful and entirely _not_ automatic translation for me, getting exponentially more difficult the longer the number. This makes (for example) singing a song where someone wrote out something like a year entirely in number symbols rather than words slightly problematic. I tend to not be able to figure it out fast enough and sorta stop singing during that piece.

I can also spell words without writing them down if they happen to be easily - and sensibly - broken into smaller words. If I remember that can be done for any specific word. (Like the name of the town I live in)

I wonder if this somehow relates to my major difficulty with pulling words out of my head? And with games like Scrabble?


Uh. "Reading is transforming letters into sound," according to the article I linked to above. Not in _my_ head, it isn't. Translating what I'm reading into sound is quite a lot more effort for me than reading is. Reading aloud probably means I'm not taking in any of what I'm reading. It's why - for the most part, although I'm getting less averse to it - I tend to not read things aloud. (I'm sure the fact that I process written things better than things I'm hearing comes into effect, as well)

Ok, enough being fascinated by this article. :)

Comments

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

I did ask you about spelling sometime before, due to the lack of visual memory thing... :)

You do have something though, because many people don't even have the "word looks right" thing. It sounds more like auditory processing difficulty than visual memory.

There's some interesting things in psychology with two sets of patients, *one has a store of words memorized, and changes everything else into those words. tweet->treat
*one has spelling/grammar/rhyme "rules" memorized and incorrectly changes things. tough rhymes with through


Yeah. I definitely can both see/hear words mentally. But writing them down and looking at them is best.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Instead of analyzing parts to identify the word, this area instantly recognizes the entire word. Reading goes from a halting letter-by-letter toil to a lovely word-by-word glide.

Also, this part isn't entirely true (reading psychology). We don't read whole words at a time. We read a certain distance, based on spacing, skip common words (a, an, the), and reprocess complicated ones. We also go back a lot more often than we realize.

That's why theselinesaresohardtoread. The spacingisbad, sowecan'tfigureoutwhereto start andm ustf igur eout word slet terb ylet ter.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Oddly - the only time I had trouble reading the weird spacing stuff such hat I was concious of slowing down was the stuff with spaces _in_ words.

Sure, I didn't read the other oddly spaced stuff as easily as not, but it didn't slow me down much.

I don't know if I read whole words at a time. I feel like I read chunks of words at a time...

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I did ask you about spelling sometime before, due to the lack of visual memory thing... :)

Yep. I remember that conversation. :) Although, I note - it's less about a visual memory and more about not being able to visualize much. I can recognize things as things I've seen before when I see them, even though I can't visualize them.

You do have something though, because many people don't even have the "word looks right" thing. It sounds more like auditory processing difficulty than visual memory.

... See above. :)