INSTRUCTIONS
color monitor and a
watch [ideally a stop watch] required for demonstration
TASK
1
-
You will
need a watch to record how long it takes you to finish this task.
Record
the time to the nearest second.
-
Just read
each word aloud as you normally would when reading. Start at the top, go
left to right, line by line, as quickly as you can and correct any mistakes.
For example, the first word is "green", the second is "brown" and so on.
Remember to record how many seconds you take to finish.
TASK
2
-
Again,
use your watch to record how long you take to finish this task.
This
time, instead of reading the word, you have to name the colour of the ink
in which each word is written, going left to right, line by line, as quickly
as you can and correct any mistakes. Speak up and say it aloud for greater
effect. For example, the colour of the first word is "pink" so you have
to say "pink" instead of "green". The second is "red", not "brown" and
so on. Do the whole list from top to bottom. Don't forget to record how
many seconds it takes you to finish.
Read on
for an interpretation of your scores and a new theory and explanation of
why old habits die hard.
color chart
 |
Interpretation
of your scores
The first task is quite simple. Everyone is good at reading words and most
people take around 30 seconds to finish this task. Reading words
is a well established skill that requires little if any conscious
effort on our part. We have practised reading for a long time and have
become quite good at it. It happens almost automatically and effortlessly,
without having to exert our powers of concentration. You make few
if any mistakes and there is no mental conflict involved.
The second task is very different. People say they have to consciously
suppress the tendency to want to read the word, to revert back to
their old habit (Task 1). The old habit ("green") tries to interfere with
the new learning ("pink"). But today the old habit is "wrong" - "green"
is wrong and "pink" is right.
Times
are very changeable, as we all know. You now have to quickly change your
knowledge, your skills and that is very difficult.
Old habits die hard, as we all know. The interference effect slows down
our learning of the new information, the new skill. Because we all
differ in how much interference we experience on this task, the time
it takes can vary from 40 seconds to 150 seconds or more. Clearly, people
differ in the strength of interference from prior knowledge but everyone
takes longer on this task than the first task and some people take
very much longer. Most people take from 2 to 3 times longer. The important
point is that we all have this problem and this is why we all dislike and
resist change. It is the reason why old habits die hard. |
Apart
from taking longer to complete, the second task also generates mental conflict
and emotions in
people.
Over many years of doing this demonstration with all kinds of people and
occupations, we
get
comments like these, "It's really hard", "I really had to concentrate hard",
"Noisy people around me
made
it even harder to concentrate - I tried to screen them out but there was
more interference", "I got
really
frustrated by not being able to do what appeared to be a simple and easy
task", "I had to
actively
stop myself from saying "green" when I knew I should be saying, "pink",
"I got angry and
frustrated
at my inability to change quickly to the right answer".
This
emotional reaction is the same reaction we experience whenever we try to
change what we
already
know and what we can do. It is a universal response to change in human
beings. It helps to
explain
why people resist change and why old habits die hard.
While
you are welcome to try this test on your family and friends, please resist
the temptation to
compare
your scores with those of others. All that really matters is how your score
on the second
task
compares with your score on the first task - the greater the difference,
the more likely you are to
experience
interference from your prior learning and the longer it takes you to change
and adapt to
new
things and ideas.
In
case you were wondering, performance on this demonstration seems to have
nothing to do with
intelligence
as measured by IQ tests. The interference effect seems to be independent
of other
abilities
although if you have a big difference between task 1 and 2 it is possible
that you have a more
retentive
memory. It also means that you may find it harder to change your established
ways.
In
your brain you have an inbuilt, hard-wired mechanism that protects and
preserves everything you
know
- all your knowledge, skills, beliefs, understandings, and so on. Once
you have practised, i.e,
repeated,
and learned something, it starts to becomes instinctive and automatic for
you. At that point
you
can perform the skill effortlessly, without having to concentrate on each
step. Your brain
mechanism
protects and preserves what you have just learned and this saves you having
to re-learn
it
all over again the next time. In this way, the brain mechanism is a real
bonus.
But
when time comes to change what you know, this same mechanism still tries
to preserve all your
prior
knowledge. It does not matter whether what you know is "right" or "wrong"
for you; everything is
preserved.
Even when you have no further use for this knowledge and you really need
and want to
change,
that knowledge is still protected from all attempts to change it. To your
dismay, you then
discover
what it means when we say that "old habits die hard."
All
this happens unconsciously, behind the scenes, inside your head and unintentionally.
And you
have
no control over it. The knowledge protection mechanism is activated automatically,
instantly,
and
fully, whenever what you are trying to learn differs from and conflicts
with what you already know.
You
want to change but your brain won't let you change quickly. The conflict
between the new
knowledge
or skill, and your old established knowledge or skill, generates massive
interference with
learning.
This is known in the psychological research as proactive habit interference
or proactive
inhibition.
This interference affects your ability to recall the new knowledge or skill
you just tried to
learn.
Within minutes or hours, you forget what you have just learned and fall
back to old ways. This
is
called accelerated forgetting. Together, proactive inhibition and accelerated
forgetting explain why
old
habits die hard, and why change is so slow, frustrating and expensive.
Proactive
interference, i.e., when old learning interferes with new learning, accelerated
forgetting, and
the
associated reversion to old ways are familiar to us all. If you have ever
tried to change your golf
swing
you know how hard that is. You have to concentrate hard on every step.
The new way feels
strange,
having done it the other way for so long. You get confused, frustrated,
performance slows
dramatically,
and your error rate goes up. You appear to forget what you've learned from
the coach
and
fall back to those old, wrong, ways. You can do it correctly during coaching
sessions and appear
to
improve.
But, as soon as you are left to your own devices or have to perform under
the stress of
competition,
your game falls apart and you revert to those old, wrong, ways. This roller
coaster ride
may
continue for weeks, months, or even years. It is called the "adaptation
period" and is well
documented.
In
our new theory of human learning, the adaptation period is seen as symptomatic
of mental
interference
with learning. It is a sign that the brain is experiencing conflict between
the old and the
new
learning. Proactive inhibition and accelerated forgetting are the result
- that is what produces the
adaptation
period and slows down change and improvement.
It
follows that the adaptation period is an indicator of a brain in trouble.
The person is no longer
learning
efficiently and effectively but is struggling to cope with change. Currently
available teaching,
training
and learning methods, and change methodologies, result in a prolonged and
resource
expensive
adaptation period. This suggests that most coaching, teaching, training,
therapeutic and
other
behaviour change and concept change methodologies are working against the
brain; not with
the
brain. These approaches inadvertently activate the brain's knowledge protection
mechanism and
make
it harder for the person to adapt to new ideas, new skills, new techniques,
and new
procedures.
Clearly, we need a better way.
Old
way/new way overcomes the brain's knowledge protection and maintenance
system, greatly
reduces
the interference from prior conflicting learning. It empowers individuals
to adapt more quickly
to
change, improve and become more flexible. It virtually eliminates the typically
prolonged period of
adaptation
to change that accompanies more conventional teaching, coaching, training,
therapeutic
and
other behaviour change methods, making it possible for individuals, groups,
teams and
enterprises
to truly achieve continuous improvement and more cost-effective change
management
NEO - New
English Orthography
Scientifically controlled experiments suggest that digraphs or, more
broadly, multigraphs, make a language significantly more difficult to read.
For dyslexics, it makes a language that is otherwise consistent, as
difficult as English to read. If true, this has obvious implications for
Truspel. An orthography with a 1:1 grapheme/phoneme correspondence would
be more advantageous to approximately 15-20% of the population, those with
dyslexia and
other LDs that impede learning to read. This is important because they
would be the first eager consumers of a new orthography. In addition, there
is evidence that a 1:1 orthography would increase average reading speed
by 10% for ALL readers.
I think that Paulesu's findings in regard to the dyslexics' problems reading
English and French should be applied to an evaluation of Truspel. His findings
showed that the number of dyslexics in the US having reading difficulties
is
double that of Italy because of orthography. Since about 15-20% of all
people
have dyslexic or dyslexic-like reading disabilities, I think their needs
should be considered in a any choice for a new orthography. These decisions,
however, would not only affect them, as I want to show below.
There is no question that Truspel is easier to read because it is a shallow
orthography. I have questioned, however, the inclusion of digraphs. My
argument
has been that it takes at least double the processing time. (Actually,
since I
have said that, I have reason to belielvle it is much more.) In my opinion
it
seems to me that Paulesu’s latest experiment (March issue of Science) includes
a very strong argument against using digraphs. Why?
He found that French was nearly as difficult as English for dyslexics,
yet
English is far more inconsistent with its phoneme/grapheme correspondence.
As
Steve has pointed out, French often has more than one grapheme for one
phoneme,
but there is no code overlap. Once the code is learned, it is far easier
than
English to read for adults like us. Why, then, do dyslexics have so much
more
difficulty than we do?
Could it be this: there are so many multigraphics (eau, ots, ou, er). Even
though they are phonemically consistent - no code overlap - there are many
such
multigraphs. I don’t have any French in front of me, but I wouldn’t be
a bit
surprised if at least 50% of the words have these silent endings that can
be as
many as 3 (or 4?) letters.
I myself can see no other reason why French and English would be so close
in
difficulty for dyslexics since that that seems to be the only factor that
makes
French difficult, its multigraphic nature. If anyone else can see any,
please
let me know.
Although I know of no tests for French, Uta Frith and Wimmer have experimented
with comparing word recognition times in English and German. English is
about
7% slower. Considering the Frith/Wimmer experiments, French is probably
equally
slower. This difference in what they call “latency time” should translate
into
reading speed. I asked Paulesu this, and he agreed.
If all of this is true, it means that a one phoneme/one grapheme principle
will
be beneficial to all.
There is another important advantage: my calculations indicate that a 1:1
system would consume 15% less space. That means that each line of type
can
contain more words. This saves eye returns to the next line - dead time
in
terms of reading, and, after a while, some fatigue time for the extra
concentration to return to exactly the place on the next line. I would
guess
that the loss would be perhaps 2 words per minute per line. If that were
calculated on the basis of a 10 word long line for TEO, the savings is
3.5%.
Combine that with
the 7% faster recognition time, and the total is 10% faster reading time.
I have put together in about 2 hours a few sentences in a 1:1 principle.
I used
graphemes in the upper ASCII that serve quite nicely because all of them
are
reminiscent of TEO graphemes. I have tested it with 3 people, and all were
able
to read them without any key. I had them compare it to the same sentences
in
Truspel. They found the digraphs in Truspel also readable without a key,
but
somewhat disconcerting. I also had one dyslexic (she is a dyslexic teacher
of
dyslexics) read both, and she had the same reaction. These results
conform with what the Paulesu et al experiment predicts.
The advantage of being so easily backwards compatible to TEO, of course,
is
that acceptance would be faster. That is, people would be more willing
to
experiment if they knew that the transfer to TEO, should they desire, would
be
fairly smooth. Dowling’s studies show a remarkably quick transfer. He doesn’t
mention problems, but if there were any, they have to be measured against
the
problems with an exclusively TEO approach.
If all of this is correct, the advantage to a 1:1 system is considerable.
The
objection cited by many is the keyboard changes. I have written a detailed
post
that nobody has yet responded to that shows that a normal keyboard could
be
used for this provided capital letters were eliminated and the numbers
keys
(plus -, =, `) occupied. Numbers could be typed from the numbers pad. Since
very few touch type numbers, there is no great loss (I would lose because
I
touch type numbers). In addition, the keys with [, ], \, x and q would
make
up the final deficit for a total of 44.
An alternative to using the number keys is the PF keys. Those could eventually
be moved down by manufacturers so they could easily be touch typed when
there
is enough quantity us to justify it.
You have pointed out that one impediments to reform has been the lack of
computers that can translate texts into NEO and that computers can now
easily
rectify this problem. The introduction of the small and portable SI will
be a
further step that allows any text anywhere to be instantly interpreted
into NEO
-- or vice versa. Also, Valerie tells me that 1:1 orthographies in the
past
have not been accepted because they could not easily be sent around. The
internet and computers obviates that problem.
Chuck
Links
|
Steve Bett, Ph.D.
