I pretty much do ALL of my “head math” this way. When multiplying 12X6 for instance, I will break it out as 6x6=36; 36x2=72. With long lists of numbers to be added, I always pick out the ones that will get me to ten, twenty, etc then add the rest - and so on.
I also get the “inner voice” while I’m trying to read. But in my case, it’s always talking about something OTHER than what I’m reading - so, I sometimes “read” anything from a few paragraphs to several pages, then realize that “the voice” has been bothering me and I haven’t actually absorbed a single word that I’ve been reading - I then have to go back and re-read the material again.
With regard to spatial problems (finding my way around a city, a building, etc.) I actually build up a mental map in my head over time as I connect one road to another or one hallway to another, etc. And it’s an actual map - I see roads and intersections and landmarks and mileage markers and everything mentally just as if I were looking at a paper map. For areas that I’m not familiar with yet, those are simply blank white areas on my mental map that will get filled in the day I decide to take a right instead of a left to get to work.
Oh, and who gets the “I can’t shut my mind off at night and fall asleep” problem - it’s kind of related, I think, to my “inner voice distracting me from reading” issue…
My boyfriend does that with words. If he sees a certain something or sees a particular word on TV, his fingers sort of twitch. I never knew what he was doing until one day I asked him and he said that he was typing the words.
It works!!! I have never tried that before. I mentioned in an earlier thread that I have to type or write a word to know how to spell it. (not pretend type. Actually type on an actual keyboard)
But after seeing roadkiller’s post I had a go at imagining typing the word with my hands, and no keyboard, AND IT WORKED! I can spell complicated words by pretending there’s a keyboard there.
Sometimes the human mind fascinates me. I should kick myself for not picking psychology for my degree. I picked software Engineering
One drawback- unless I don’t mind looking stupid - I have to convert ‘a’ to ‘ay’ and ‘b’ to ‘bee’ and ‘n’ to ‘enn’
(i.e. I have to convert the simple childlike pronunciation of words that my mind does into the ‘proper’ adult pronunciation)
Ask me to spell ‘wallpaper’ I could quite quickly say “w a l l p a p e r” but it would take me longer to say (because of the extra mental step) “doubleyoo ay el el pee ay pee ee ar”
When I become very fatigued, I lose the distinction between the physical world and the computer world. I think of people and I wonder how I could access their hard drives, and what kind of processor they’re running. I look at objects and wonder how I can create instances of them, and whether I can modify the source to the base class. I look at animals and it takes me a while to convince myself that it isn’t going to respond to binary code. Even if it isn’t sentient. Even if it is an NPC. There’s no way that dog’s gonna correctly execute jnz 21h.
I have conversations with myself. Sometimes with myself working behind different personality models. Sometimes not. I argue with myself, too, looking at the pros and cons of a position, being my own Loyal Opposition as I decide a case.
Even though I am right-handed, I always `find’ the left side of my body first. I put things I know I’m going to reach for often on my left side, except for things that require some motor skill to use. Key: Right side. Handkerchief: Left side. Book: Left side. Drink: Right side. My mom says I was born left-handed but spontaneously switched to right-handed before I was in preschool. Left-handedness is associated with some brain dysfunction. Maybe I healed myself incompletely, and some old wiring is still there.
I ghost-type words, too. And I also hear a voice when I’m reading, but it doesn’t slow me down. Apparently my inner voice talks at 300 wpm the same as my reading speed…
Whenever I’m reading a book where the characters aren’t American, they still sound American in my head…even though I KNOW they’re English/French/German/Southern–any other accent besides my own–I still “hear” the dialogue in my own accent. (Unless the author uses dialect, which just pisses me off.)
I do a weird math thing, too…as a bartender, I’m always adding up totals in my head, so for four drinks which are $4.75 each, I add up the even number–4--and then add up the 75 cents, and then add it all up together. Or I round the drinks up to $5 and then subtract the four quarters. I can do this in a split second; I had never thought about it until I read this thread.
I also have to write a word down before I can figure out the spelling; I’m an excellent speller on paper, but I’d suck at a spelling bee. My mind just doesn’t work that way. I have to SEE it.
And when I’m taking exams I’ve studied for, I have to picture the page the information was on originally in order to recall it. “It was on the right-hand side, upper paragraph…oh, yeah!”
I guess all this means I’m a visual learner…?
As far as the voice in my head goes…I don’t know my WPM, but I’m an extremely quick reader…and the voice “speaks” a lot quicker than I myself do. I don’t know whose voice it is, though.
Since I don’t really type, just bang on the keyboard (with lots of backspaces), that typing-to-spell trick doesn’t work for me. When I want to spell a word, I just visualize it and read it off. Maybe that comes from reading so early and so much when I was a kid.
And I usually add from the left if it’s just a pair of numbers, backing up one column to adjust for carries. If I have a list to add, I do the looking-for-tens trick, but still usually add from the left even then. It works pretty well if I don’t think about it too much.
As chrisk72 says, I think it has to do with learning styles. And that, of course, brings up the Great Debate of Nature vs. Nurture.
I’m really bad about visualizing someone of my own ethnicity and culture when I’m reading too, Audrey Levins. The only time I get it right is when I’m reading a novelization of a movie or TV show I’m familar with… otherwise all the characters are white and speak my own dialect.
I always feel rather ashamed about that, Aesiron…because it’s totally subconscious on my part. I always thought that everyone did that–kind of “cast themselves” as the hero/heroine–but my fiance is Hispanic and I asked him, just now, if he always assumes the main characters in any book are white…and he says yes. Unless otherwise specified, it’s pretty much a given.
It’s the same with me. I find it difficult to say the name of each letter. I have to write the word down. Pretending to write it with an imaginary pencil can help if I absolutely have to name the letters and there’s no pencil and paper nearby.
I have never in my life been able to tell my left from my right (and I"m 18 now). I circumvent it by wearing a ring on my right finger; ring=right.
I also add up dollars and cents separately most of the time.
I build up strange conventions in my mind in order to circumvent my own laziness.
I’m a very fast reader, but occasionally (usually when I’m tired), I scan words without actually reading them – and it usually takes me about a page and a half to notice.
I do that too. I find it funny that I will read like a whole page but not be actually taking any of it in.
Sometimes I look at my watch and forget to see what time it is. Whenever someone sees me look at my watch they say “what time is it?” at which I will look at my watch and actually get the time this time. "you already looked at your watch!
