HACKER Q&A
📣 oakenfloor

When reading a text, do you remember exact words or the overall meaning?


I've been wondering recently... when I've just finished reading a text I can kind of remember the "meaning" (or a feeling) of what the text was saying, and can also translate it into other words most of which weren't present in the text, but can't recall the exact words. Like for example:

If I read

"Computer programs are available to help instruct speed reading students. Some programs present the data as a serial stream, since the brain handles text more efficiently by breaking it into such a stream before parsing and interpreting it."

and then turn my head away to describe what I've read, I say: "computers can help in speedreading, because they can show data serially and it's better for the brain that way", but never remember how it was written (I didn't even remember the "instruct [...] students" part).

  👤 WheelsAtLarge Accepted Answer ✓
A few people claim photographic memory and say they can remember everything exactly as seen but I don't think it has ever been proven.

I've heard of actors than can memorize what they read almost immediately but they actively want to memorize the text. It does not happen automatically.

I like most people remember the jest of what I read or hear. Every once in a while I remember text verbatim. It usually has to do with how impactful the passage is so I tend to remember it. It's never very long.

Remembering everything sounds good but that means you'll have to remember both the good and the bad. Imagine remembering all your bad experiences forever. It does not sound that good.

👤 dieselgate
Think I'm personally more prone to remembering words and general concepts, from the passage OP used the parts "instruct speed reading" and "serial" are all I can really recall. This worked out well during my engineering education because a lot of the focus was on "not remembering formulas but being able to derive them from first principles". I've always been impressed by people who can see a movie or something once and be able to recite all the funny lines perfectly.