Originally Posted by Mark in Idaho

I corrected much of my problem by learning to be more relaxed and unstressed.

I don't see the Spritz vs RSVP vs normal reading as having much to do with this. Your eye sees the word as a whole, not as something moving past the eye. Unfortunately, the video is entire inadequate at demonstrating Spritz so, I have to try to understand it from reading the descriptions.

Reading is not a 'look at each letter' action. The brain looks at the whole word. It appears the Spritz method just changes how you eye moves between words. It does not change how your eye sees each word.

The brain uses indexing to process visual images. In your brain is an index of each word you know. It also has an index of all of the things you see during your day. When you see those images again, it does not need to decipher the image to understand it. It just indexes the stored image as it was previously deciphered and uses that previously deciphered information. Those images that have not been indexed are usually ignored until further understanding of that image is needed.

I do not know this to be true but in my experience, I sometimes seem to grasp letters from the previous word or a following word into the image of the word I need to process. This may be why the word sometimes gets erroneously defined. This may have to do with the fact that I have a minor horizontal gaze (nystagmus) disorder. It is a common symptom of brain injury.

I was assessed at a rehab hospital about 6 years ago and my dysfunctions did not reach a 'needing treatment' threshold. Keep in mind that many with similar dysfunction but more serious in the early stages consider reaching our level of function as a remarkable recovery. Perfect recovery is a myth.

I would caution you about doing too much reading on smart phones and such. The eye is put under more load when trying to read those small and often fast moving screens. Spritz is designed to increase reading speed on those devices, not directly improve reading accuracy.

btw, I tried the Spritz test. I could read the words fast but lost all comprehension. The Spritz method demands good memory functions. With line by line reading, I can capture the concept of the line without having to memorize the words and compile them into a sentence. For me, the longer the image is in front of my eyes, the more i remember it. The flashed images fade from memory too fast.