There is this project that some students at Harvard did that I thind is fascinating. The project says that a normal person will not read the entire word but just the first and last letters. It will only work when the letters in the middle are the same but just in a different order. For example I will use the word Harvard in this fasion; Hrarvad. Could you read it well try reading this:
Tihs porecjt is porbblay the coloset tihng taht any one culod do. Prat of tihs is taht the wrod has to be fuor lteetrs lnog and cna’t hvae the smae two ltteers in the mildde lkie the wrod good. If you can raed tihs so far good job can you tlel all of the trhee leettr wrdos are the smae. Wlel if you figrued taht out tehn you are petrty dran samrt. I wlil end tihs psot now so gdooybe.
Anyway I think that this project is amazing and these kids at Harvard should get an A+.
1 response so far ↓
1 Mr. Wilkoff // Feb 22, 2007 at 7:45 am
I think that you have latched on to something pretty powerful in our language, and I am glad that you have given context for the research rather than just giving us an example. I wonder, though, what other sorts of anomalies in reading can you find? What kind of research could you do that would give you a good idea how people read? If you are not interested in that sort of thing, good job on the post anyway.
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