A good observation....it underscores an idea long understood by speed readers. The fastest readers not only take in entire words at an instant but can take in entire lines of text. It's a learned skill which most people are capable of acquiring. Combinations of words tend to occur/recur in fairly consistent patterns which an acclimated mind can pick up on instantly.
A study was once done, where they tracked the eye movements of master chess players to see where on the board they were looking (to gain some insight into how they were visually 'thinking') and then compared the results to beginner/intermediate chess players. What they found surprised the researchers at first. The masters spent very little time looking around the board and only looked in a few places, even though they were planning several moves in advance. The novices' eyes moved quite a bit more and were all over the board. It turns out though, that the experienced players intuitively understand that the game (especially at the beginning) tends to follow recognizable patterns. They didn't bother to look at rooks because they knew the rooks would sit there until mid game.
The human mind has amazing ability to detect patterns in all sorts of ways auditorily, visually, and intellectually. I tend to think the money spent on researching and trying to understand the way we think is money well spent in the long run.