Not seeing some kinds of errors during proofreading on screen
I have prepared, read - and proofed and corrected, over and over again - my own five Sci Fi books, both in making the camera-ready copy for paperback printings, and changing as necessary for being submitted online for eBook formatting - typically converted into a MSWord doc for submission (unlike the the paperback POD publisher which requires it to be in pdf format.) Apparently I am too conditioned to paper hardcopy reading, as I still need a proof printed hardcopy to read to find the last of the corrections needed before publishing. I also had that problem many years ago when writing my space-related technical papers and preparing them as camera ready copy for conferences; but I had thought it was just due to the highly technical aspect of the writing and format.
It does seem strange. But I can't find all the errors by just working on screen. I have assumed that - maybe - it is due to prior conditioning during my formative years; and so the youngsters coming up won't have that problem, having been on screen all their life. Or maybe they will never be able to find those last errors.
Possibly related is that back in the early 90's I recall a co-worker who did the company's graphic arts work, she saying that such artists always had to sketch a graphic out first on paper and then copy it into the computer for final finishing up; that they could not effectively go direct into the computer. Again I had assumed it was a problem due to the flicker of the CRTs then, but the LCD screens ought not have that problem so much. Then I assumed it was an eye-hand-visualization component of art, not seeing the hand doing the tracing out of the image parts. I have wanted to try the drawing tablets to see if they bypass that phenomenon, but have not been able to afford one so far.
But there is this worry that something about the screen interferes with some mental processes. I recall taking an Educational Kinesiology workshop where the teacher advised not eating in front of a computer CRT since the horizontal lines interfered with digestion. She was really smart re kinesiology and physiological phenomena, so it seemed worthy of consideration. LCD's don't have the horizontal scan lines of CRT displays, however, but are full of pixels and probably refresh in a specific sequence maybe horizontal line but only on updates to the image.
Another place, I read that some research found that a person, after being in front of a computer or TV screen for awhile, actually blanked out portions of their total awareness such that it was in sync with the video blanking time while the trace is being shifted up to start a new raster scan, but the person was simultaneously not aware of other phenomena including that which was external to the CRT during the same time intervals. Such as a light flashed or a quick sound in that time interval, the person would not notice it.
Maybe that all is related to the problem of not seeing some kinds of errors during proofreading on screen.
It does seem strange. But I can't find all the errors by just working on screen. I have assumed that - maybe - it is due to prior conditioning during my formative years; and so the youngsters coming up won't have that problem, having been on screen all their life. Or maybe they will never be able to find those last errors.
Possibly related is that back in the early 90's I recall a co-worker who did the company's graphic arts work, she saying that such artists always had to sketch a graphic out first on paper and then copy it into the computer for final finishing up; that they could not effectively go direct into the computer. Again I had assumed it was a problem due to the flicker of the CRTs then, but the LCD screens ought not have that problem so much. Then I assumed it was an eye-hand-visualization component of art, not seeing the hand doing the tracing out of the image parts. I have wanted to try the drawing tablets to see if they bypass that phenomenon, but have not been able to afford one so far.
But there is this worry that something about the screen interferes with some mental processes. I recall taking an Educational Kinesiology workshop where the teacher advised not eating in front of a computer CRT since the horizontal lines interfered with digestion. She was really smart re kinesiology and physiological phenomena, so it seemed worthy of consideration. LCD's don't have the horizontal scan lines of CRT displays, however, but are full of pixels and probably refresh in a specific sequence maybe horizontal line but only on updates to the image.
Another place, I read that some research found that a person, after being in front of a computer or TV screen for awhile, actually blanked out portions of their total awareness such that it was in sync with the video blanking time while the trace is being shifted up to start a new raster scan, but the person was simultaneously not aware of other phenomena including that which was external to the CRT during the same time intervals. Such as a light flashed or a quick sound in that time interval, the person would not notice it.
Maybe that all is related to the problem of not seeing some kinds of errors during proofreading on screen.
Labels: CRT displays, LCD displays, proofreading, reading difficulties
posted by Unknown at
17:47
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