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bigbrain
BANNED
409 Posts |
 Posted - 12/31/2005 : 09:22:47
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THIS WILL REALLY FREAK YOU OUT
Count the "F" in the following text:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...
How many ? 3?
Wrong, there are 6 !!--no joke.
Read it again.
The reasoning behind it is further down.
The brain cannot process "OF".
Incredible or what ? Go back and look again!!
Anyone who counts all 6 "F" on the first go is a genius.
Three is normal, four is quite rare.
Send this to your friends
It drives them crazy
Happy New Year
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"Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit" (Flattery gets friends, truth hatred)
Publius Terentius Afer, "Terence", Roman dramatist
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2005 : 12:30:51 [Permalink]
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I got four of 'em. That's a tough, littl word to see -- didn't know that could be so...
Good puzzle, thanks, and HAPPY NEW YEAR BACK AT YA!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2005 : 12:42:49 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by bigbrain
[green]THIS WILL REALLY FREAK YOU OUT.......
Happy New Year
What's also weird is that the human brain can understand the meaning of a message no matter how scrambled, as long as the first letters of every word are intact. Here's an example using your message:
FNIISEHD FEILS AER TEH RE-
LUST OF YAERS OF SEICNTIF-
IC SUTDY COBIMNED WTIH TEH
EPXREEINCE OF YRAES...
[b]Hppay Nwe Yare to All!  |
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tw101356
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2005 : 12:50:02 [Permalink]
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I found five on the first attempt. Missed the first "of" but saw the next two. I would speculate that it might have something to do with how it's read. If you mentally read the sentence, then you would hear a "v" sound in the word of, and be less likely to register it as an "f".
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- TW
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2005 : 13:52:27 [Permalink]
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... it only works for natives 
Happy New Year back at ya! |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2005 : 14:21:48 [Permalink]
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| 5. Missed the middle 'of'. I'm not sure how this really ties in with intelligence. I've see a similar puzzle before and made extra care to scan the sentences. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2005 : 16:32:52 [Permalink]
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I got all 6 this time, but I've seen it before, so I knew what to look for.
I think tw101356 is on the right track. It's a combination of "small" words getting lost when the brain converts the text into sybmbols, and the pronounciation making the brain register a 'v' instead of 'f'. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2006 : 16:19:58 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Chippewa
What's also weird is that the human brain can understand the meaning of a message no matter how scrambled, as long as the first letters of every word are intact. Here's an example using your message:
FNIISEHD FEILS AER TEH RE-
LUST OF YAERS OF SEICNTIF-
IC SUTDY COBIMNED WTIH TEH
EPXREEINCE OF YRAES...
Hppay Nwe Yare to All!
This is a myth. I'll have to dig up the past stuff on it. I think one of the sites like snopes debunks it. I'll get back to you later if someone doesn't beat me to it. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 01/05/2006 16:21:14 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2006 : 00:30:25 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
I've heard of it with first and last being in the same place, but I don't possibly see how it could be a myth. Every letter except the first is scrambled, and I can read it.
I'd be surprised if you could some how show that the first letter is scrambled or that I can't read it.
It rllaey ddeenps how lnog the wdros are.
For icntanse, wluod you usradetnnd if I tlod you the phescyhoss of the phyctoisc wree nouruems and uglibinillente?
And that's with the first and last letters in their original positions.
Highlight for Translation: It really depends how long the words are.
For instance, would you understand if I told you the psychoses of the psychotic were numerous and unintelligible?
And if you really want to make it tough, just give the word no cadence, no pronounceability by grouping all the vowels and consonants together. So pronounce becomes pcnnrouoe.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 01/06/2006 00:50:55 |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2006 : 01:54:48 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
...This is a myth. I'll have to dig up the past stuff on it. I think one of the sites like snopes debunks it. I'll get back to you later if someone doesn't beat me to it.
Possibly. If it is a myth, than it would likely depend on one knowing what the message says before reading the jumbled version of it.
Then the effect would be one of recognition.
(Thne teh efecft wldou be oen of rcegoiniton.) |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2006 : 04:30:49 [Permalink]
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I thought I had a better reputation than to just be dismissed.
Snopes leaves it as undetermined but I found the link on the Snopes page to the page that debunks it.
It was a response from the credited source of the idea saying they were not the source. Here's the meat of the matter:
You have to go to the Snopes site and link to "Cambridge". I couldn't insert the link here and make it work.
quote:
Update 2:
Graham has very kindly sent me a summary of his thesis work.
it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae... it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place
This is clearly wrong. For instance, compare the following three sentences:
1) A vheclie epxledod at a plocie cehckipont near the UN haduqertares in Bagahdd on Mnoday kilinlg the bmober and an Irqai polcie offceir
2) Big ccunoil tax ineesacrs tihs yaer hvae seezueqd the inmcoes of mnay pneosenirs
3) A dootcr has aimttded the magltheuansr of a tageene ceacnr pintaet who deid aetfr a hatospil durg blendur
All three sentences were randomised according to the "rules" described in the meme. The first and last letters have stayed in the same place and all the other letters have been moved. However, I suspect that your experience is the same as mine, which is that the texts get progressively more difficult to read. If you get stuck, the sentences are linked to the original unscrambled texts.
Hopefully, these demonstrations will have convinced you that in some cases it can be very difficult to make sense of sentences with jumbled up words. Clearly, the first and last letter is not the only thing that you use when reading text. If this really was the case, how would you tell the difference between pairs of words like "salt" and "slat"?
I'm going to list some of the ways in which I think that the author(s) of this meme might have manipulated the jumbled text to make it relatively easy to read. This will also serve to list the factors that we think might be important in determining the ease or difficulty of reading jumbled text in general.
There is still a very real debate in the psychology of reading, however, about exactly what information we do use when reading. I don't know how much of this literature Dr. Rawlinson was aware of at the time of his thesis, but I do think that the jumbled text provides a neat illustration of some of the sources of information that we now think are important. I'm going to review some of the research that has been done to demonstrate this.
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2006 : 10:25:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
I thought I had a better reputation than to just be dismissed.
I wrote "possibly" which opens the door to your information being correct. Hardly a dismissal. Anyway, thanks for the link. By way of analogy, this also reminds me of the moon illusion. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2006 : 10:33:24 [Permalink]
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| I suppose it depends on how common or familiar the words are, as well as how jumbled they are - as HH says, really. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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sts60
Skeptic Friend
141 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2006 : 16:14:21 [Permalink]
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| I think it was on ABC radio some time ago - they did the same thing with spoken words, where the words where chopped up into progressively larger chunks. It was quite surprising how mangled the speech could be and still be recognizable. |
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