Frequent regressions
The eye keeps jumping backward. Working memory is losing anchor.
- Raise fixation ratio → Strong
- Narrow column to 58ch
- Increase line height to 1.9
- Enable line-focus guide
Adaptive Reading
Read at your speed. Adapt in real time.
Cognisia watches how your brain reads and quietly adapts typography, spacing, and focus in real time. 100% on-device, zero settings.
No sign-up required • Your data stays on your device
The adaptive reader
Eight reading states. Detected automatically.
In the real extension, the engine infers these states from your behavior and — with permission — your gaze. Here you can toggle them manually to see what changes: typography, fixation, font, column, focus, and the “why.”
https://substack.com/reading-differently
Lexend
Mild Struggle
Essay · 1,240 words · 6 min read
On the brains that read differently
Reading is not a single cognitive act. It is a negotiation between the eye, the working memory, and the semantic model the brain has built of the world. For neurotypical readers this negotiation is fast, silent, and invisible. For dyslexic, ADHD, and cognitively diverse readers it is loud — full of regressions, dropped lines, and exhausted rereads.
Every tool in this space has asked the wrong question. They ask the reader to tell them what is wrong. To toggle dyslexia mode. To pick a font. To adjust line height. This is the clinical paradigm — the paradigm of the settings panel — and it fails because the reader often cannot describe what is failing.
Cognisia inverts the relationship. It does not ask. It observes. It notices that your scroll reversed three times in the last paragraph. It notices that your eye dwelled twice as long on a line with eighteen words compared to one with nine. It notices that at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday your reading cadence collapses, and it responds.
The response is never loud. Nothing announces itself. The page simply becomes easier to read, the way a room becomes easier to occupy when the lighting has been adjusted by someone who cares.
Optional · Real camera · 100% on-device
Turn on your camera for real eye tracking.
Switch between pupil-precise Eye mode and wide Facemode. The tracker runs Google's MediaPipe Face Landmarker locally in your browser — every frame is analyzed and discarded within milliseconds.
Live gaze tracker
MediaPipe · on-device · no frames uploaded
Ready
Your camera is off.
Click Start camera below to run real-time gaze detection locally.
Frame rate
0.0fps
Blinks / min
0
Eye openness
100%
Confidence
0%
processing log · eye.stream
lm=0lat=0.0msiris.r=0.0pxmirror=on
> awaiting stream …
pupil.L
—
pupil.R
—
gaze
x=+0.00 y=+0.00
confidence
0%
Never uploaded
What Cognisia would do
The tracker never drives your UI directly. It informs 10-second aggregate patterns that adjust typography quietly.
If gaze stays in center column
Hold current typography. Record this combination as a strong flow baseline for the open domain.
If gaze drifts to peripheral chrome
Enable Tunnel Mode. Dim nav, sidebars, and ads to 16%. Narrow column by 6–10%.
If blink rate drops below 8/min
Assume visual fatigue. Shift to warmer tint. Increase line-height +0.1, bump font-size +1px.
If long dwell without progression
Switch to Dense Text profile. Raise fixation contrast. Offer an inline summary if available.
In this demo the tracker runs for inspection only — you can see your own gaze signal, but Cognisia's type engine stays locked. In the installed extension, signals feed the adaptation pipeline after a rolling 10-second observation window.
Pattern library
Four signals Cognisia reacts to.
Once patterns sustain for ~10 seconds, the type engine applies the matching adaptation silently.
Gaze drift outside column
Attention is wandering. Peripheral elements are pulling focus.
- Activate Tunnel Mode
- Suppress peripheral chrome
- Soften page margins
- Slightly intensify active line
Long unstable fixations
Cognitive load is high. The eye is dwelling but not progressing.
- Switch to Dense Text mode
- Increase font size +1px
- Increase line-height to 1.9
- Raise fixation contrast
Smooth linear progression
Reading is flowing. Keep everything out of the way.
- Hold current typography
- Dim side chrome 8%
- Record current profile as strong baseline
- Suppress interventions for 15 min
Your face never leaves this tab.
Video frames are processed in-memory and released on the next frame. No recording, no uploads, no persistence.
End-to-end localWCAG-AA contrastAuto-discard frames
Ready to read differently?
Install Cognisia and start experiencing adaptive reading. No sign-up, no tracking.
A personal project by Tanmay Krishnagiri • 100% open source