Peer-reviewed research
A Lingering Question Addressed: Reading Rate and Most Efficient Listening Rate Are Highly Similar
Victor Kuperman et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2021
Read the originalRead on October 16, 2026
- What it is
- A study that compared listening comprehension at several speech rates with silent reading of the same matched texts, within the same participants. Listening comprehension held up at 270 words per minute and fell steeply at 315.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed and by a team that includes Brysbaert, who wrote the 2019 reading-rate review. We read the abstract on the university repository page, not the full paper, so sample size and the comprehension measures are not verified here.
Facts taken from this source
- In a 2021 study, listening comprehension was not hindered at 270 words per minute but showed a steep decline at 315 words per minute, with the same participants and matched texts.
“We replicated the finding that listening comprehension was not hindered at the speech rate of 270 wpm but showed a steep decline at the rate of 315 wpm.” (Abstract)