I usually listen at 1.5x passively.

But what you said made me curious. I listened to this podcast at 3x. I was able to understand all the words, but my conceptual understanding decreased. I also have to listen actively -- not passively.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SFkwdm0PP0

At 4x, I could only understand the shape of the sentences but could no longer make out the words. But I turned on the captions and found I could keep up. Turns out reading at 4x works, listening at 4x doesn't.

English is also spoken with different prosodies and cadences. For instance, I can understand Singaporean English perfectly, but it's less amenable to being sped up. I tried listening to this lecture in Singaporean English in 3x and found that I could barely understand it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA1dnUYzRWU

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manusachi 9 days ago | parent | next [-]

Blind people often go upto 600 words per minute and more with text-to-speech, which is, I think, would be an equivalent to 5x and more.

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yjftsjthsd-h 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

In fairness, they cannibalize their visual cortex to do that:)

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sooheon 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

There's the cue for my biennial reread of Peter Watts' Blindsight.

	▲	Bluestein 8 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Went into my list. Appreciated :)
	▲	kamarg 8 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Did you read his followup Echopraxia? How would you say it compared to Blindsight?

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bryanrasmussen 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm pretty sure you can train yourself to do the same, but the effort probably doesn't seem worth it for most people.

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worthless-trash 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

But its robotic and predictable, human speech is not.

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throw0101d 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I usually listen at 1.5x passively.

Eminem's song "Rap God" has a segment where he goes at about 6 words per second (@4m23s):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA

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BizarroLand 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

Racine sings the english translation of the Disappearance of Hatsune Miku much faster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohDycgc-H8

However, there is a difference between a rehearsed and practiced performance and communication that makes these things more a feat of acrobatics.

	▲	throw0101d 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		For a time in the 1980s John Moschitta was well-known for making fast-talking commercials: * FedEx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeK5ZjtpO-M * Micro Machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzd11GMBONg * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moschitta_Jr.

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digitalsushi 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

i can catch a single fastball. sometimes. i cant catch 1 per second

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Bluestein 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

1.7x here as a matter of course.-

PS. I wonder if, even peripheralally, having one of 'em newfangled AI glasses teleprompting you at the same time, could get one up to 2.0x or higher.-