Interesting mind game

[Anderton]

Try to read this, it's interesting.

 

THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID

 

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers are in a wrod , 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 porbelm.

 

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh !!

[ani]

Even a bit more fun...

 

I placed this text into a Microsoft Word document and allowed the spell checker/auto correct to replace the mispelled words with the most probable match. I selected the number one match from each correction. Three words were unidentified, a few others gave the wrong words entirely as a first choice in probable matches.

 

Try to read this, it's interesting.

 

THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID

 

Occurring to a rscheearch at Cambridge Uinervtisy , it doesnt matter in what order the letters are in a word, the only iprmoatnt thing is that the first and last letter be in the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it outfit problem.

 

This is busier the human mind does not read every letter by istle , but the word as a whole. Amazing huh !!

[Gulliver]

Wow... Taht's cool!

[coyote]

Kinda makes you wonder if dyslexia is quite the problem it's portrayed to be.

[Botch.]

A year or so back in Keyboard magazine, someone stated that you could bang nonsense chord runs out really fast on an organ, making sure your thumb and pinkie were hitting an octave apart and hitting notes of the blues scale (ie, your thumb and pinkie were simultaneously hitting c, Eb, F, F#, G, or Bb), and it wouldn't matter what your middle two or three fingers would hit, the run would sound like you really knew what you were doing.

 

I tried it and it seemed more difficult than actually playing something sensible, may have to try it aigan...

[Tedster]

Tehn my tpynig soulhd be oaky, huh?

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by coyote:

Kinda makes you wonder if dyslexia is quite the problem it's portrayed to be.

It is and it isn't.

 

Dyslexia, from all I've read and heard, is easily treatable. But to say it's not a problem is spinning the information Craig illustrated. People with dyslexia often reverse letters and numbers as well as the order of letters and numbers. Just as an example, I think you'd agree it's a significant problem if a dyslexic were mistake, say, 39 for 93 when filling an order... or preparing an injection of medicine.. or many other situations that require a firm grasp of numbers. Plus, you don't know that a dyslexic won't switch the first or last letter of a word with another in that word. Since Craig's information relies on the first and last letters being correct, that doesn't help one way or the other for dyslexia.

[henrysb3]

Originally posted by Anderton:

Amzanig huh !!

Does "huh" count?

 

First Red Hammers, now this. Craig, where do you find this stuff? I'm starting to look over my shoulder.

 

Henry

[Gus Lozada]

Originally posted by Anderton:

Try to read this, it's interesting.

 

THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID

 

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers are in a wrod , 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 porbelm.

 

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh !!

I had already tried this in spanish... now in English and yes, it's the same!

 

ist so gdoo wehn yuo tpye in a hrruy

[DJDM]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

 

Dyslexia, from all I've read and heard, is easily treatable.

That's an interesting concept. I have Dyslexia and even with several years of special schooling as a tot I was not "treated". I and others like me just learn to work twice as hard as the average person at everyday tasks like spelling and certain other academic functions. As an example I still have to really concentrate if I want to tell the difference between left and right. Sounds strange I know but that's not even the tip of the iceberg. I have trouble with names and I have more difficulty spelling than I care to admit. Every one of my thousands of posts to this and other forums I hang on goes through a word doc first or there would be a dozen embarrassing misspellings in each and every one of them.

 

Dyslexia is not a condition that you treat it's a disorder that you learn to work around.

 

PS I misspelled the following word in this post: differece, embarasing

Actually that is really not bad for me.

[I I mjrn]

I wonder if this works for languages other than English, as well, or for other alphabetic scripts like Arabic...

 

I've heard of this phenomena before & it does seem true....but I suggest context has a good deal to do with it. If one's perusing a text with a lot of longer words does the effect hold up?

 

Also, I think it might not if one's examining a mere word list rather than sentences.

For example try these:

itresetnig

gnnieue

ilctias

aouistcc

poeioasrsfnl

[noneverstuck]

This is absolutely true. As a graphic designer, I had to explain many times to clients why they should not have the body text of their ad typeset in upper case ("But it'll SEEM BIGGER!").

 

People read word shapes, even phrase shapes, not letters. A paragraph set in upper case loses all its shapes.

 

Deef

[ani]

itresetnig

gnnieue

ilctias

aouistcc

poeioasrsfnl

In a quick view of these without studying them I came up with these:

 

interesting

genuine

italics

acoustic

professional

 

After I went back and looked at the combination of letters more thoroughly, I noticed that the first word did not have two n's in it; therefore making the word "interesting" incorrect for the actual number of physical letters listed in word one, yet still the most probable remedy what is available to choose from.

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

Originally posted by Michael Jackson's real nose:

Also, I think it might not if one's examining a mere word list rather than sentences.

The list doesn't work because of context (or lack thereof).

 

We people repeat ourselves a lot. We repeat in the most repetitive of repititious ways. A lot.

 

Anyway, the result is that there are patterns of both speech and text that get imprinted on our brain at an early age. When you're also given the clues of the correct first and last letters, your mind is cool enough to do the rest.

 

It is fun and neat, in any case. I read through Craig's paragraph as quickly and easily as had the words been properly spelled. However...

 

I'm srue terhe are sceenetns and wdros taht are mroe dcfitulft tahn oehrts, of csuroe. Aaign, it's all aobut cxntoet. Arloltiats slaecd the gsraey speols and trtraireiol pnails of etersan Swshcakaeatn dnurnig the hciraomna sloo.

 

See what I mean?

 

- Jeff

[ani]

Arloltiats slaecd the gsraey speols and trtraireiol pnails of etersan Swshcakaeatn dnurnig the hciraomna sloo.

I was reading right along until I hit the black slopes. I'm not even going to attempt to decode this one; it's too taxing on the weary brain. I made some of the words out but... you got me!!! I had to study to get what I got; they were not fluent reading.

 

"Arloltiats? scaled the grassey (s?) slopes and territorial plains of eastern Saskatchewan during the harmonica solo" I guess the first word is the name of a composer that I'm not familiar with. I had to work at this... now my brain hurts.

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

I inadvertently made that first word a wee bit harder by leaving out a letter.

 

 

Try "Arlogliats".

 

My point was... most language is easy to interpret because you pretty much know what to expect. Entire chains of words get strung together in the same ways over and over again, even to express wildly different ideas via changes in sentence/paragraph structure.

 

But when I threw in a sentence that you couldn't have possibly anticipated, it got a lot harder to see in context, and you found yourself decyphering individual words (instead of reading straight through as per Craig's example).

 

- Jeff

[I I mjrn]

Originally posted by Jeff Da Weasel:

Originally posted by Michael Jackson's real nose:

Also, I think it might not if one's examining a mere word list rather than sentences.

The list doesn't work because of context (or lack thereof).

Uh, that was part of my point...although Ani seems to've had no problem (even with my accidental mistyping for "interesting").

 

About all capitals v. mixed letters, capitals still have "shape", though less varied. I think our minds find text set in them more tiresome partly because we must search for clues like proper names, etc.

Those familiar with sometime forum poster Arellspencer can ponder the effect his raTher rANdOm typInG tSyle may hAVe on perCpetion.

 

Nothing about any of this changes the basic fact of the phenomena Craig cites itself, though.

[I I mjrn]

There's an interesting parallel here with something I read in a book called Music, the brain & Ecstacy (wonderful book that all should read).

 

When beginning & intermediate musicians sight read they tend to follow each note-set & line sequentially. More advanced, experienced sight readers take in the material more as discussed here, skipping about in the notation & following what music of a particular type tends to do.

When faced with music of a type they're less familiar with, or that is full of oddities, they read no better generally than less experienced readers.

[ViLo]

Originally posted by Anderton:

Try to read this, it's interesting.

 

THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID

 

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers are in a wrod , 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 porbelm.

 

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh !!

True word! I can read it just fine...azming idneed

[aeon]

Anderton said:

Amzanig huh !!

My friend Pashmina, who is legally blind, did not think so, as her text-to-speech reader didnt know what to do with it.

 

heh,

aeon

[soundthinker]

The power of the human brain lies in its ability to make sense out of seemingly chaotic stimuli. If you really want to get into the theories behind this pick up a copy of Great Ideas in Information Theory, Language and Cybernetics by Jagjit Singh. The English language only gives its users freedom over about 42% of the letters chosen. The remaining 58% of your letter choice falls under spelling rules and redundancy. This 58% excess in data transmission is even larger when you include sentence structure in the 'error-correcting' algorithm of the written language. This stuff is great ancillary knowledge for audio professionals, it generalizes the nyquist theorem, mp3/perceptual encoding, and cd/dvd error-correction among many other things. Great thread!

 

/jim

[KenElevenShadows]

Am I the only one who feels like I'm trying to read Russian?

[Philip OKeefe]

Originally posted by Ken/Eleven Shadows:

Am I the only one who feels like I'm trying to read Russian?

Russian's actually a lot harder Ken.

 

Craig, very cool stuff. I "get" the first / last letter concept and the connection to how people actually read... I tend to read whole sentences at a time instead of words (or idnivdiaul letters to make up words), but it still worked for me - I was able to figure out nearly all of it at a quick glance, and only in one or two spots did I have to slow down a bit to figure something out.

 

I agree with henrysb3 - where do you get this stuff?

[whitefang]

Hey, ken! Looks more like Polish to me!

 

Ani, I remember back when they had those handheld electronic dictionaries with spelling correction. I tried one in the store by entering "caboose" spelled wrong, and the only word it came up with was "calaboose"! So I saved my money.

 

Whitefang

[ani]

Phil,

 

Craig's example did not slow me down in the slightest, not even a stumble in fluency, nor did Michael Jackson's Real Nose's list of words. However, Jeff's example was a real bite in trying to decypher what the content had to say. The first words I was able to unscramble were "harmonica", "solo", and "Saskatchewan"; in that order. I had to build on the harmonica solo to get a general idea of what was being said. "Slopes" and "plains" were the next words to come to me, and although there was an "s" missing from "grassy" I assumed that the word fit into the context of "plains and slopes". I associated "eastern" as being a more definite location in Saskatchewan, and then came the word "scaled" was linked to both music (in terms of the harmonica solo) and "scaling" the terrain of slopes or plains. "Territorial" was the hardest word to come by, outside of the composer name that I neglected to resolve; had I been familiar with his works, it might have been easier (even with the omitted letter).

 

I finally concluded that the scrambled "territorial" must have something to do with the definite "eastern Saskatchewan", hence I was able to connect territorial with absolute location. Jeff's was a mind boggler for sure.

[I I mjrn]

Originally posted by soundthinker:

The power of the human brain lies in its ability to make sense out of seemingly chaotic stimuli.

Unfortunately this is also one of our greatest flaws, in that we sometimes percieve patterns even where they may not exist.

Think of the popular question "Why do bad things happen...?".

There is always a cause for events but often we look for the reason.

 

Less philosophically, this can affect our perceptions when we look at natural phenomenae & "see" relationships that may be there because we look for them.

[soundthinker]

Originally posted by Michael Jackson's real nose:

Unfortunately this is also one of our greatest flaws, in that we sometimes percieve patterns even where they may not exist.

First off, you're right. A system needs feedback on its perception of the relationships between 'chaotic' data. It needs someone to say yes or no until it learns to do what we want it to do, be it predicting the weather or tuning a guitar.

 

Secondly, this really applies more to systems intended to be of limited scope. I like to view the human experience as having wide enough scope as to turn these 'flawed' conclusions into new perspectives on a situation. I think that we have a great freedom to provide our own feedback, and this ability to teach ourselves is fairly unique in this world. But freedom and safety don't go hand in hand. So we do need to treat this freedom with respect.

 

Less philosophically, this can affect our perceptions when we look at natural phenomenae & "see" relationships that may be there because we look for them.

Enstein and relativity state that the act of observing affects the object being observed. So if we're looking at two objects, they both have a relationship to us. We take these two seperate relationships, and because we know where we are, we can extrapolate a third relationship between the two objects. Think about the stereo image of a mix heard by people in different parts of a room. Each speaker by itself is a 'point source' and each person, if the same distance away, hears the same thing. Observe the speakers together and one person will hear the trumpets to the left of the saxes, one will hear the trumpets on the right, and another may hear a completely different relationship between the instruments. Who is hearing the 'true' relationship? Just because one is more proper doesn't change the fact that the improper relationships still exsist. If you perceive something, that perception is valid, it may not be worth anything or useful under a certain (often arbitrary) set of rules, but it exsists...

 

/jim

 

PS: I know I took some liberties with my logic and various well documented theories. Please call me on them, it will teach me to be more careful! Especially when I get this tired and am looking for an argument.

[I I mjrn]

Modern physics also demonstrates that the act of observing some phenomenae in itself can affect the resulting observations.

As often as not how we look at things determines what we percieve.