Ask HN: 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).
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).