Word Wise

[trickykitty]

I've seen this many times, but still get a kick out of it whenever I see it. I'd like to actually figure the thing out from a cognitive standpoint, but that is a task very low on my list of to-do items.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, 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. 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.

Here's a quiz. Take the word "ghoti". This word represents a common word in the English language and can be phonetically pronounced. What is it and why?

Comments

[isotripy.livejournal.com]

Yup, when I'm writing fast I write the next letter before the one that comes before alot.

[smokedamage.livejournal.com]

is that only at the start of words? i do that sometimes.

have you ever done it in the middle of a word?

[isotripy.livejournal.com]

Normally only in the middle of words, it happens usually during lectures when I'm taking notes but not looking at what I am writing. There is a whole field of psycholinguistics devoted to speech errors, apparently by looking at errors you can unveil the procesesses underneath our performance. This angle is taken alot with perception too with visual illusuions.

[trickykitty.livejournal.com]

That's kind of what we're doing with the dyslexia research. We're looking at the error rates of normal readers versus dyslexics. If we can understand the error rates, then we can understand the processes causing them.

[isotripy.livejournal.com]

What do you think of the magnocellular deficit theory of Dyslexia, the only theories I'm familiar with posit higher level sensory deficit (ie auditory - phonemic parsing and/or visual deficit of low spatial frequecies perception). But apparently there is alot of evidence inconsistent with these theories.

[trickykitty.livejournal.com]

I will start getting more into reading up on the prior research regarding dyslexia once I'm done writing up an educational paper that's well-past overdue. What little I do know is based on a couple of slightly older books which concentrate on the behavioral side rather than neural side. The research is based on a strong hunch of my post-doc advisor who's done a lot of studying in this area.

The second part of my research will be to integrate our findings in a neural network with known brain areas. I think at that point I'll be able to get more involved with the magnocellular ideas because we will more than likely have to see if they too can be integrated with the model. It's a fine line, though, to make sure that we don't confound the model. At the moment I can't say either way, but since I'm a neuroscience-based person, I wouldn't discount the possibility that the problems are mostly cellular based. As for why, that remains to be seen.

The summer research problem, although we will be using neural substrates, is mostly behavior-based in an effort to label what the brain is actually doing and create better testing and teaching methods. If it leads to further research on the neural level then I will be happy.

[trickykitty.livejournal.com]

In my neural networking class last semester we studied a few optical illusions in conjunction with the networks used to "explain" them. In one of my homework assignments I had to create a neural network to explain the Muller-Lyer illusion.

[trickykitty.livejournal.com]

P.S. This (http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/sze_muelue/) is my favorite web site regarding the Muller-Lyer illusion. I though you might enjoy it.

[smokedamage.livejournal.com]

interesting.

i might go troll the web for some reading.

Cheers