Anybody been exposed to a Tachyscope?

Back in the early 1960’s when I was in grade school in Oklahoma, the teachers gave us a curious test. It involved a piece of equipment which from my memory was probably a Tachyscope. That is, it was some kind of projector that could display a sentence on the screen one word at a time, and the delay between words could be varied.

Those of us who scored high in the test were given some exercises with the Tachyscope, learning how to read faster. Only a few sessions, as I recall.

I have noticed that for the rest of my life to date, there is anecdotal evidence that I read faster than everybody else I know, and I can interpret images that flash by in, say, a movie or TV show that other people miss.

I gathered from reading a novel entitled CITIZENS OF THE GALAXY by Heinlein that this device was invented by a certain Samuel Renshaw.

Since this gizmo seemed to have pretty impressive effects with little exposure, I am surprised that it is not still being used in schools.

Has anybody else had exposure to the Tachyscope while in grade school?

I remember being subjected to this in gradeschool, but I have no idea what it was for. My reading comprehension seems to be average or slightly above my peers, but I don’t remember how I did on the tachyscope (if that’s what it really was) test.

WAG: I suspect that it was just a measurement of your better than average reading ability (or possibly photographic memore skills) and did nothing really to create your skills.

That is, it did not create (or improve) your abillity; it just identified it.

We had a fairly primitive PC program that simulated the device you’re describing, Nyrath. It flashed words and small groups of words on the monitor for variable periods. It could theoretically be set to a maximum flash-read speed of 10,000 wpm, i.e. a 5-letter word remaining on the screen for 1/10,000[sup]th[/sup] of a minute (.006 seconds). I’m dubious about its accuracy, as I was able to catch words fairly reliably at that speed.

Regardless, I don’t think the device or any special training with it does much to improve reading speed. Since you noted that it was the students who did well on the test who were singled out for further training, I would say that it’s a matter of selection bias. The training didn’t do anything–you just have a natural knack for reading quickly and interpreting things that appear only briefly (a good short-term memory helps with this). The Tachyscope test just picked up on those talents.

Being exposed to tachyscope rays can cause unreversable damage to the chonon and crayon subatomic particles. I’ve always avoided it.

I do recall being tested with one safely behind the apparatus. I think it was one of those pseudo science things that looked like a sensible concept but had no hard data to back up any claims of usefulness.

Okay I’ve found the device. It’s called a tachistoscope, and seems to work on the theory of subliminal learning.

The whole subliminal message thing got such a bad rap back in the early 80’s that I bet the schools dropped it for fear of lawsuits or something.

From what I remember, it was used by our teacher as more of an assesment of our reading speed and comprehension more than as an aid to teach us to read faster.

We would sit and read a story that was projected onto the movie screen. You could only read the words that were being displayed for you through a small (shit, I can’t think of how to explain this) window at the the lens of the projector. The window would follow the lines of text down the screen. Then we’d have a test to asses our reading comprehension of the story. The ones that failed the test were eliminated, those that passed went on to read a different story at a slightly faster speed and took another test. This went on until everyone in the class failed a test.

I specifically remember that the teacher told us that this was not part of our grade, it was simply a method of determining our comprehension and reading speeds, and she made it more of a game or contest for us rather than a test.

The Tachyscope and the Tachistoscope are different machines.
Using a CRT as a Tachistoscope.
Renshaw/Heinlen on Tachistoscope.
The Tachyscope was a precusor of motion picture films.

Thank you for all your useful input. (no wonder my web searches came up empty, tachISTOscope, not tachYscop!)

Squink’s Heinlein link says it all. As Attrayant hypothesized, the tachistoscope merely identified my talent, it didn’t create it. Mr. Renshaw’s methodology has been questioned quite a bit by his peers.

Darn, I thought I was on to something.

A couple of years ago, one of the teachers where I work was interested in re-starting an after-school non-credit speed-reading course that she had done years (or even decades) before. She needed to find the old tachistoscope, though, but couldn’t do so. It was later found in the school’s basement, and looks essentially like a slide projector. I am not sure if she did end up using it or not.

So far we’re doing a good job of keeping this question in GQ. Let’s keep it that way by avoiding having everyone chirping in “I remember that”. I don’t want this to turn into an IMHO, so let’s limit ourselves to discussing the theory behind the device and any evidence of how effective it is. Also acceptable is any non-anecdotal evidence of how commonly it was and is used.

bibliophage
moderator GQ