Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Can you raed tihs?
The number of people passing this around leads me to believe this is quite viral:
Aoccdrnig to rseaecrh prefroemd 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 at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total 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.
The original reference is a letter to New Scientist magazine by Graham
Rawlinson of Aldershot, Hampshire (vol 162 issue 2188 - 29 May 1999,
page 55) titled "Reibadailty".
Rawlinson writes: 'You report that reversing 50-millisecond segments of
recorded sound does not greatly affect listeners' ability to understand
speech (In Brief, 1 May, p 27).
'This reminds me of my PhD at Nottingham University (1976), which showed
that randomising letters in the middle of words had little or no effect
on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text. Indeed one
rapid reader noticed only four or five errors in an A4 page of muddled
text.
'This is easy to denmtrasote. In a puiltacibon of New Scnieitst you
could ramdinose all the letetrs, keipeng the first two and last two the
same, and reibadailty would hadrly be aftcfeed. My ansaylis did not come
to much beucase the thoery at the time was for shape and senqeuce
retigcionon. Saberi's work sugsegts we may have some pofrweul palrlael
prsooscers at work.
'The resaon for this is suerly that idnetiyfing coentnt by paarllel
prseocsing speeds up regnicoiton. We only need the first and last two
letetrs to spot chganes in meniang.
'This was not easy to type!'
The letter is in New Scientist's searchable online archive
(archive.newscientist.com)
The number of people passing this around leads me to believe this is quite viral:
Aoccdrnig to rseaecrh prefroemd 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 at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total 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.
The original reference is a letter to New Scientist magazine by Graham
Rawlinson of Aldershot, Hampshire (vol 162 issue 2188 - 29 May 1999,
page 55) titled "Reibadailty".
Rawlinson writes: 'You report that reversing 50-millisecond segments of
recorded sound does not greatly affect listeners' ability to understand
speech (In Brief, 1 May, p 27).
'This reminds me of my PhD at Nottingham University (1976), which showed
that randomising letters in the middle of words had little or no effect
on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text. Indeed one
rapid reader noticed only four or five errors in an A4 page of muddled
text.
'This is easy to denmtrasote. In a puiltacibon of New Scnieitst you
could ramdinose all the letetrs, keipeng the first two and last two the
same, and reibadailty would hadrly be aftcfeed. My ansaylis did not come
to much beucase the thoery at the time was for shape and senqeuce
retigcionon. Saberi's work sugsegts we may have some pofrweul palrlael
prsooscers at work.
'The resaon for this is suerly that idnetiyfing coentnt by paarllel
prseocsing speeds up regnicoiton. We only need the first and last two
letetrs to spot chganes in meniang.
'This was not easy to type!'
The letter is in New Scientist's searchable online archive
(archive.newscientist.com)
