After reading this piece in Optical
Illusions, I don't feel so stupid any more. According to
Esther Inglis-Arkell, "It turns out, this is
partly a matter of the way your brain processes text — and partly
something that's specific to English and a few other languages." Have you heard of the Stroop Effect? I hadn't either, but when I read the explanation I realised that I had read it somewhere before. "The Stroop Effect happens when the words for one color are printed in ink of another color ... If the word 'GREEN' is printed in blue ink, even though their eyes see blue, their brain thinks 'green'. It takes people a while to sort it out."
I am not a speed reader; I like language too much. Speed reading is good for those who like to know the ending. (Of course, you could peek at the last page.) I am one of those who hates a good book to end; its like parting after a long meaningful relationship with a good friend. One could revisit, certainly, but it will not be the same. There will no longer be the same serendipitous quality about it. So I read good books slowly, and bad ones quickly to get it over with.
But, coming back to proof reading, I am still dreadful at it. One problem is the familiarity of the text. Researchers at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit found that "... It's possible to scramble those letters around while keeping them near where they would be, if the word were in its correct order ..." without losing comprehension. Apparently, this is possible only with a few languages including German. (They failed when they tried it with Hebrew.)
Read the whole story here.
