Brain Challenge

Barefoot TJ

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Staff member
Mar 5, 2010
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Here's another trick of Doctor Dementia to test your skills...
Can you meet this challenge?


Good example of a Brain Study: If you can read this OUT LOUD you have a strong mind. And better than that: Alzheimer's is a long long, way down the road before it ever gets anywhere near you.




7H15 M3554G3
53RV35 7O PR0V3
H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N
D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5!
1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5!
1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG
17 WA5 H4RD BU7
N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3
Y0UR M1ND 1S
R34D1NG 17
4U70M471C4LLY
W17H 0U7 3V3N
7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17,
B3 PROUD! 0NLY
C3R741N P30PL3 C4N
R3AD 7H15.
PL3453 F0RW4RD 1F
U C4N R34D 7H15.



To my 'selected' strange-minded friends: If you can read the following paragraph, forward it on to your friends with 'yes' in the subject line. Only great minds can read this. This is weird, but interesting!


If you can raed this, you have a sgtrane mnid, too.


Can you raed this? Olny 55 people out of 100 can.


I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseaethe huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
 
Reading was fine, but the addition took a minute.

It's a basic property of language that we don't need to hear everything that's said, but can fill in the gaps with native knowledge of morphosyntax and phonology, discourse genres, shared presuppositions, etc. That's why it's so much harder to understand a foreign language in a noisy setting than our own, or to read bad foreign language handwriting.

Part of the reason this text becomes easier is that we identify the topic after a few lines, so we start to know what sort of things can be expected to be said, and anticipate the completion of each phrase or sentence.