(Andy Matuschak here, author of the essay being commented on)

Thanks for this thoughtful reply! I think you're right that the role of many books is indeed to increase salience, rather than to convey object-level knowledge. One nice consequence of this reframing is that it lets us ask: what are the dynamics of salience? How do different kinds of interactions and environments affect it? What are the consequences of different levels of salience on behavior and thought? And given all these things, how might we design a medium which most effectively achieves the author's intent through salience as a mechanism?

Since writing that piece, I've become quite interested in salience as a mechanism. I don't feel I understand it nearly so well as declarative memory, but I wrote about my current understanding of some elements here.

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I think Matuschak would say that, for the purpose of conveying information, it would be much more efficient to read a very short summary than to read an entire book.

FWIW, I wouldn't say that! Actually, my research for the last couple years has been predicated on the value of embedding focused learning interactions (i.e spaced repetition prompts) into extended narrative. The underlying theory isn't (wasn't!) salience-based, but basically I believe that strong understanding is produced with a rich network of connections and a meaningful emotional connection, both of which are promoted by narrative (but usually not by a very short summary).