Saturday, March 15, 2008

O lny srmat poelpe can raed tihs

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 rgh it pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

2 comments:

JP Bandon said...

I was lookng at your blog and saw the entry you posted on March 15th
about 'O lny srmat poelpe can raed tihs'. This caught my attention
because I did a degree in Applied Psychology in UCC, and the above
posting was the topic of my final year project.

Before I did my bit of research on the topic I contacted the
psychology department in Cambridge. To their knowledge, the e-mail was
circulating (I came across it in September
2003) but the research had never actually been conducted as it was stated
in the e-mail (what's posted on your blog).
So, I did a bit of research on it for my final year project.

My findings were that as long as the letters of maximum separation
were kept in place (basically the exterior letters kept in place)then
the words were readable, however this effect seemed to break down in
words longer than 5 letters (beyond which the majority of words seemed
to become unreadable). When the letters of maximum seperation were moved
(for example the last letter being put first and the first letter last)
then the words became unreadable.
However, my piece of research only covered words from 4 to 7 letters
long. There's still a lot of research that could be done in relation to
this.

dave mac said...

excellent stuff! ta for that seanpol anyone anything further to add?