Reading With the Right Brain: Read Faster by Reading Ideas Instead of Just Words (17 page)

This also explains why memories change over time. It is not because we forget them; it’s because we never really remembered them in the first place, at least not as exact recordings of facts and events. In fact, the latest studies on memory have found that memories are actually altered every time they are recalled, depending on which attributes are connected and which attributes are more strongly emphasized.

This understanding of memory will increase your reading efficiency by encouraging you to concentrate on the conceptual thought-units rather than trying to memorize the words and details. Unless you are trying to memorize something like technical jargon or a poem, you are not remembering the words, but the ideas. Comprehending text means thinking of what it means.

Here’s an example of conceptualizing via attributes. The thought of a red rose creates attribute connections for red things, roses, flowers, plants, and any other categories you might associate with a red rose—including any emotional attachment you might associate with roses. Later on when you retrieve this information, you aren’t really retrieving the original memory; you are instead reconstructing the memory from a distributed network of attributes, where each attribute contributes to the larger meaning of the idea. When you remember this information, you will recreate this memory as red + rose + flower + plant, including, excluding, and even replacing many of these puzzle pieces from all the connections that were originally made.

The point is, each memory is actually distributed throughout a network of connections to many other memories; these memories will be stronger or weaker based on the number and strength of these connections, and then will be further affected by the number of times they are accessed.

Over time, the more you know about red roses, the more connection points you will have established and will be available for similar information to be attached to. Every additional piece of information you store will make it faster and easier to store new pieces. This will also make information faster and easier to retrieve since there will be more connection points to access it from. For example, just thinking of “red” might remind you of that particular rose and the occasion of that memory.

Another variable that affects the memory process is age. For instance, the reason we don’t form long-term memories before the age of three is probably because we don’t yet have enough memories to firmly attach new information to. If an infant sees a table for the first time and then later sees a chair, the chair will not remind him of the previous table because no conceptual connections have been made between these two items yet. The table will be easily forgotten, as well as the chair and any other memories associated with either of these items.

But by the time we have accumulated about three years of experiences, we will have created enough associations to begin to make connections strong enough to possibly last for years.

Then later, after a certain age, the brain begins to suffer a slowdown in processing speed. But due to neuroplasticity, the brain can compensate for some of this slowdown by making use of the many more connection points available, the larger vocabulary, and the sharper language skills developed by that time.

Regardless of age, though, the more you read, the more you exercise your brain. Furthermore, the more you put into your brain, the richer life becomes.

Concentration and Focus

Knowing how the brain reads and how to improve its functioning is important, but this knowledge is useless until put into practice. Knowledge is not power—it is only
potential
power. Power requires effort. All reading and comprehension takes mental effort, and trying to read and comprehend faster will obviously require an increased effort. Most of this additional effort will be directed to paying more
attention
; which involves an increase in
concentration
and
focus
.

“Concentration” is applying more mental resources to your reading, it’s thinking more about what the information means. Increased concentration is like shining a brighter light on a subject. In this way, concentrating on your reading makes the information clearer and easier to see.

“Focus” is tuning out internal or external distractions in order to narrow your attention to the material at hand. Focus increases your mental efficiency by minimizing the waste of resources. Increased focus is like looking at the subject through a magnifying glass, as it strengthens attention on the information being read and reduces attention to distractions.

One way to maximize the overall mental energy you have available for these tasks, is to be sure your brain is operating in top condition. A good way to do this is by providing your brain with adequate fuel— and it uses
lots
of fuel. Amazingly, although the brain only makes up two percent of the body’s total weight, it uses twenty-five percent of the body’s oxygen and seventy percent of its glucose. The best way to ensure a good fuel supply is through good health; so for maximum efficiency, it’s very helpful if you get proper physical exercise, nutrition, and rest.

Even though there are limits to the improvements that can be made to your brain, you can still strengthen it with mental exercise. In fact, practicing to enhance your reading abilities has a powerful impact, not only on your reading skills, but on your physical brain itself.

Besides increased effort, it also takes
time
to develop better reading skills. You should also be aware that reading whole phrases and concentrating on conceptual ideas as you read is going to feel strange at first; changing old habits usually feels a bit uncomfortable. But if it doesn’t feel strange, then you probably aren’t doing anything different. So accept that it will take time for your mind to adjust to conceptual reading.

Concentrating on whole thoughts and visualizing and conceptualizing whole ideas uses more of your brain. It spreads these communication tasks over a broader portion of the brain than simply decoding text into words would do. The visual, big-picture area of the right brain specializes in this complex, conceptual type of thinking.

Reading with the Right Brain

Most of the areas of the brain typically associated with reading are on the left side, and this is actually the area we are most familiar with. But the area this book is primarily concerned with is way over on the right. Textual information arrives on the right side via the corpus callosum
―
a wide, flat bundle of neural fibers connecting the two brain halves.

When you study how the brain reads, you will see a lot of information about processes and areas of the left brain. Over on the right side, it’s much more of an unexplored frontier. In fact, this side seems to get a lot less attention overall. For example, if you do a Google search for pictures of the brain, you’ll see that almost all the images are of the left side.

The left hemisphere is where our language center is located—this is the side that talks to us. Maybe that’s the reason it’s so much easier to get to know than the silent right side.

But the right side actually has a major role in effective comprehension. The right side is where concepts and visual images are formed.

The difference between the two hemispheres was first discovered when patients had their corpora callosa severed in attempts to eliminate severe epileptic seizures. Doctors found that when these people were shown words to the left sides of their brains (paradoxically, through their right eyes), the signals were unable to cross to the right sides, and these patients were unable to identify pictures that matched the words. Likewise, if a picture was presented to the right sides of their brains, they were unable to produce the matching words. This lack of communication is what proved to neurologists that the separate hemispheres actually had very different functions.

The right side of the brain thinks by looking at information as complete patterns. Unlike the left side, which processes information in a step-by-step fashion, the right side looks at whole images or whole ideas together and sees the overall patterns and connections of the information.

This unique talent allows the right side to handle the higher order cognitive processing, which means it can interpret information faster, more holistically, and recognize the big picture. This holistic ability is why the right side excels at things like imagination, intuition, facial recognition, and artistry, while the left side can balance a checkbook.

Both sides have their own important specialties, but reading only with the left brain is like squeezing information through a straw, compared to the wide river of information that the right brain can process simultaneously.

After the left and right side process data, it is sent to the prefrontal cortex. This is the seat of consciousness, an area which regulates information, modulates impulses, and coordinates data coming from other brain centers. This area enables you to form plans, make decisions, spot errors, and break habits. It is also where working memory—the mental desktop—resides.

While the prefrontal cortex’s job is to process data into meaningful information, there are aspects of information which could affect processing capabilities—emotion, for one thing. Dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with joy and pleasure, primes the prefrontal cortex for action and strengthens its informational signals. Also assisting the prefrontal cortex in its processing are repeated, rhythmic, structured, and easily visualized information—all of which make information easier to remember.

Practice Exercise #9

As you read this exercise, be aware of what your mind is doing. Reading words may be automatic for you, but this doesn’t mean the rest of your brain and consciousness will automatically be involved.

In order for you to get anything lasting out of your reading, it helps to understand how your brain works and which form of information it works with best. This means paying attention to the real conceptual meaning of information, whether it is concrete or abstract. If you want your consciousness to stay involved and store this information into your long-term memory, you must concentrate, focus, and conceptualize.

When you’re ready, begin reading the first thousand words of

White Fang
by Jack London

White Fang

Dark spruce forest
frowned on either side
of the frozen waterway.
The trees
had been stripped
by a recent wind
of their white covering
of frost,
and they seemed
to lean
towards each other,
black and ominous,
in the fading light.
A vast silence
reigned over the land.
The land itself
was a desolation;
lifeless,
without movement,
so lone and cold
that the spirit of it
was not even
that of sadness.
There was
a hint in it
of laughter,
but of a laughter
more terrible than
any sadness—
a laughter
that was mirthless
as the smile
of the sphinx,
a laughter
cold as the frost
and partaking
of the grimness
of infallibility.
It was the masterful
and incommunicable wisdom
of eternity laughing
at the futility of life
and the effort of life.
It was the Wild,
the savage,
frozen-hearted
Northland Wild.

But there was life,
abroad in the land
and defiant.
Down the frozen waterway
toiled a string
of wolfish dogs.
Their bristly fur
was rimed with frost.
Their breath
froze in the air
as it left their mouths,
spouting forth
in spumes of vapor
that settled upon
the hair of their bodies
and formed
into crystals of frost.
Leather harness
was on the dogs,
and leather traces
attached them to a sled
which dragged
along behind.
The sled
was without runners.
It was made
of stout birch-bark,
and its full surface
rested on the snow.
The front end
of the sled
was turned up,
like a scroll,
in order to force
down and under
the bore of soft snow
that surged
like a wave before it.
On the sled,
securely lashed,
was a long
and narrow oblong box.
There were other things
on the sled—
blankets,
an axe,
and a coffee-pot
and frying-pan;
but prominent,
occupying
most of the space,
was the long and narrow
oblong box.