A funny peculiarity of the mind

[Azrael 5]

This little oddity:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer
be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

**** is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

Pretty cool:D

[c4ts]

Nothing too different from the average post on a video game message board.

[phildonnia]

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:R79FQj60fnkJ:www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/+%22matt+davis%22&hl=en

[Nex]

Wasn't that Cambridge thing a hoax?

I don't know. Someone, set me straight. :D

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Uidebnlany, the aoreeofnntiemd treohy is a plaatond of bnvioe emrecnext.

~~ Paul

[flyboy217]

Stropups cinulonsocs epicrenexe averattline

[Ratman_tf]

Context helps too.

Try doing it with a list of random words.

[BPScooter]

All that tells me is that human pattern recognition skills are so amazing, that with learning and/or teaching they can get to a higher level of meaning from even a scrambled stimulus. Maybe the way we learn languages in the written form, in the phonetic system depends on this.

Not to be snippy, but What is this supposed to Show us that (as linguists and semioticists) we Don't already Know?

Let me show a musician a "scrambled up" tune and watch what they play. They will play what they "saw" which means that if I showed music notation for, say, Happy Birthday, with one error of notation, well... by golly, the person tends to play Happy Birthday. They overlook the detail errors and read the patterns.

Just to make sure I understand, I'll ask in a proper way.

"What is this intended to demonstrate?"

or more to the point,

"What si **** itnedned to edmnostreat?

[Anders]

Originally posted by Azrael 5
This little oddity:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer
be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

**** is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

Pretty cool:D
Hey, that's so good for me! I write like a horse ice-dance. Oops, I got it right this time!

[Anders]

Originally posted by BPScooter
All that tells me is that human pattern recognition skills are so amazing, that with learning and/or teaching they can get to a higher level of meaning from even a scrambled stimulus. Maybe the way we learn languages in the written form, in the phonetic system depends on this.

Not to be snippy, but What is this supposed to Show us that (as linguists and semioticists) we Don't already Know?

Let me show a musician a "scrambled up" tune and watch what they play. They will play what they "saw" which means that if I showed music notation for, say, Happy Birthday, with one error of notation, well... by golly, the person tends to play Happy Birthday. They overlook the detail errors and read the patterns.

Just to make sure I understand, I'll ask in a proper way.

"What is this intended to demonstrate?"

or more to the point,

"What si **** itnedned to edmnostreat?
first and last letter has to in the same position.

not 'edmnostreat', but 'dosmenatrte'.

[phildonnia]

Originally posted by Anders
first and last letter has to in the same position.

not 'edmnostreat', but 'dosmenatrte'.

ufnyn, I ifdn teh ifrts neo aesire ot nuderstadn.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Azrael 5
This little oddity:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer
be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

**** is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

Pretty cool:D

I could read it all straight off without any hesitation whatsoever apart from the third last word and the very last word ie slpeling and ipmorantt.

I can read upside down without any hesitation too. :)

[TheBoyPaj]

Unfortunately, I have heard people try to offer this little trick as evidence of the existence of PSI!

You know the sort of thing, "It's amazing what the brain can do that scientists are only just discovering etc etc."

[phildonnia]

Science is just discovering that people can sometimes make sense of badly misspelled words?

You know, ancient peoples, in some over-romanticized country like tibet or something, have known this for centuries.

[phildonnia]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I can read upside down without any hesitation too. :)


The weird thing is, if you find someone who has never tried to read upside-down, and challenge them to do so, they can pick it up quite quickly. Much more quickly than, say, learning to read in the first place. A funny thing that brain is.

Practical application: When you're lying on the couch reading a book, let's say, on your left side. Reading the right side of the book is easy, but reading the left side requires holding the book up in the air. Instead, flip the book over and read the left side upside-down.