Love how the brain works :)

[jflis]

We're all "rocket scientists" in one form or another. that means we's gots gud brains

My sister sent this to me and I have to admit, I was quite amazed with how easy this is to read even though it looks like giberish. I guess it is/was an experiement on how the brain works, stores, reads and recalls words and (i would imagine) many other things.

Well, for what it's worth, give it a read:

============================

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit 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 thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

=============================

kewl

 

[DJ Delorie]

An amusing related note is that typists eventually start typing words, not letters that make up words (I personally "chord" many words), as they get better. When that happens, they stop spelling words wrong and start typing the wrong words instead, sometimes typing completely unrelated words that sound the same but are typed quite differently.

 

[Justin Horne]

cool! That's really weird...

 

[DynaSoar]

Originally posted by jflis
We're all "rocket scientists" in one form or another. that means we's gots gud brains

My sister sent this to me and I have to admit, I was quite amazed with how easy this is to read even though it looks like giberish. I guess it is/was an experiement on how the brain works, stores, reads and recalls words and (i would imagine) many other things.

Well, for what it's worth, give it a read:

============================

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit 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 thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

=============================

kewl

Try it in audio with the syllables similarly scrambled.
You won't understand anything.
Vision operates in parallel, in 2.5 dimensions (up/down, left/right and depth), hearing in series in one dimension (time).

What hearing CAN do is tune into a single signal that's way overpowered by noise, and hear half of it and fill in the rest. Vision is too distractable by noises great than signal.

The brain is a marvelous toy, and should be played with constantly.

Did you learn to write your name?
Want to bet?
Put a pen between your toes or teeth.
Write your name that way.
Yes, it's sloppy, but it's recognizable as your "hand" writing.
You never learned to write with your foot or teeth before, have you? But you can do it.
You don't learn to write your name. You learn a sequence of mapped muscle movements that the brain can translate and re-map to entirely different muscles that never attempted the feat before.

 

[rbeckey]

I sometimes type in the fashion of the example from Cambridge. The becomes teh, and lots of other out of order mistakes. Also spacing errors, usually attaching the last letter of one word to the beginning of another. This is getting worse as I get older, or as I get more experience typing, depending on how you look at it. I must carefully proofread these days, but since I know what I meant to say, I sometimes don't catch the errors.

 

[Maelstrom]

Some of you may find this very interesting(I did, my wife did not).

The Science of Word Recognition
https://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfonts/WordRecognition.aspx

 

[jflis]

Originally posted by rbeckey
I sometimes type in the fashion of the example from Cambridge. The becomes teh, and lots of other out of order mistakes. Also spacing errors, usually attaching the last letter of one word to the beginning of another. This is getting worse as I get older, or as I get more experience typing, depending on how you look at it. I must carefully proofread these days, but since I know what I meant to say, I sometimes don't catch the errors.

BINGO!

Wanna see some examples of *my* similar errors???

...buy a kit



I *gotta* git Jennifer to do more proof reading for me... LOL

 

[n3tjm]

Wow... That really does work! I was able to read it very fast! Non-stop!

 

[Pippen]

I've seen this before and it still amazes me.

I've got a child with a disorder called Hyperlexia which means he came equipped with the innate ability to decode language. He started spelling words at age 2 1/2 (still had a pacifier!) and within a year could read anything we put in front of him, plus could write very legibly. The process was absolutely fascinating to observe. He's 8 now and isn't hyperfocused on letters these days but I'm going to show him that passage and see what he does with it.

BTW, I just discovered that my toemanship is much better than my mouthmanship.

 

[powderburner]

In which sequence (exactly) did you hold that pen with your toes and mouth?

 

[rdbones]

I am not sure we want to know the answer !!!

This stuff is very interesting !

 

[DynaSoar]

Originally posted by Pippen
I've seen this before and it still amazes me.

I've got a child with a disorder called Hyperlexia which means he came equipped with the innate ability to decode language. He started spelling words at age 2 1/2 (still had a pacifier!) and within a year could read anything we put in front of him, plus could write very legibly. The process was absolutely fascinating to observe. He's 8 now and isn't hyperfocused on letters these days but I'm going to show him that passage and see what he does with it.

BTW, I just discovered that my toemanship is much better than my mouthmanship.

If you haven't already, ask him what colors each of the letters and numbers are. Hyperlexia and precocious math abilities in non-Aspergers are often convolved with synethesia. That is, detecting a stimulus with a response in a sensory mode other than where the stimulus came in: tasting colors, hearing smells, colors associated with letters, numbers or words. Richard Feynman attributed is amazing math ability (numbers math, not his theoretical physics) to his synethesia of colors associated with numbers.

This often runs in families, but none of them know it about the others because it just never occurs to them to talk about it and for them it's just normal.

Here's one that proves many peoples' eyes and ears don't operate at the same speed:

Set up a speaker and a monitor on a computer.
Make the speaker click every few seconds.
Every 10th or 12th or 14th click (at random) replace the click with a flash on the screen.
Tell people to count the flashes on the screen.
Afterwards ask them if they could predict when the flash was going to happen.
About 1/3 of them will say yes.
All of them will say they could because "the sound stopped and so they knew the flash was coming".
This is despite replacing the click with the flash, so it happend exactly when the click would have -- no delay.
Tell them this and try it again, and they'll still report the same thing.
One of my lab assistant had even helped me write the script for the stimulus computer and knew it was impossible, but she contibnued to perceive it that way anyway.
If you tell the to count the clicks instead and ignire the flashes, they STILL see it that way.

Here's another:
take two pens, one in each hand
Write your name with your dominant hand. OK
Write your name with your non-dominant hand. Terrible.
Now write your name with both hands, the non-dominant mirroring the dominant. You can do it.

I lurves playing with BRANES.

 

[Pippen]

Originally posted by powderburner
In which sequence (exactly) did you hold that pen with your toes and mouth?

The sequence is irrelevant since we *always* sterilize our writing utensils between uses. Am I the only one who does this?

 

[rbeckey]

Pippen,
Do you watch Monk?

 

[eugenefl]

Alright, so when do we connect a computer to the brain? I want to surf the web in real time and see everything in 3d! I could go into the FlisKits "Virtual Store" and handle rockets! We could have virtual rocket launches online! AHHHH! (Insert Keanu Reeves "WHOA" here!)

I am really baffled by the brain. It's a pile of meat with flowing juices and it "does something!" What's interesting about the human anatomy in general is that our skeletal structure and protective systems is designed with regards to an order of importance. (i.e. - the brain gets the skull, the heart gets that funky cage, the groin area gets...ugh, well...there goes my theory!)

 

[slim_t]

See Jim,
I tlod you thsoe tyops dindt matter.

Tim

 

[kenobi65]

Originally posted by Pippen
BTW, I just discovered that my toemanship is much better than my mouthmanship.

Either way, it would make you very popular on dates.

 

[Gus]

Jim,

Thanks for posting this. Really, really, interesting.

But I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that a guy who invents such interesting rockets is interested in what happens when you mix things up a little!

 

[Pippen]

Originally posted by rbeckey
Pippen,
Do you watch Monk?

Nope, I am probably America's foremost TV illiterate. We don't even have cable TV (shocking, I know). I watch a grand total of about 8 hours of TV a year and that's news or PBS. I do pop in a video now and then though.

If the tie-in to the discussion isn't family friendly, then skip the explanation please.

 

[Pippen]

[

Originally posted by DynaSoar
If you haven't already, ask him what colors each of the letters and numbers are. Hyperlexia and precocious math abilities in non-Aspergers are often convolved with synethesia. That is, detecting a stimulus with a response in a sensory mode other than where the stimulus came in: tasting colors, hearing smells, colors associated with letters, numbers or words. Richard Feynman attributed is amazing math ability (numbers math, not his theoretical physics) to his synethesia of colors associated with numbers.

I did ask this morning because recently I've been finding papers with secret codes on them, including simple number to letter correspondance. He couldn't retrieve any numbers past letter E and didn't understand when I checked on color so I would say the answer is no. He's atypical in the diagnostic sense in that he presents with clear Autistic traits but doesn't fit the criterion for any one of the disorders due to high level of functioning and a more social nature. He probably approaches Asperger's more closely than the others though.

When he was young and a big tub of magnet letters were his favorite toy I could ask him what color a specific upper or lower case letter was and he could tell me. Parents report this as being very common in Hyperlexic children, most of who have ASD diagnoses.

I have run into (online, not literally) Hyperlexic musicians who associate musical notes with the color that their corresponding magnet letters were when they were little. Is that the same phenomenon? It sounded as if the perception of the sound, the color, and the letter (note) were one and the same.

Here's another:
take two pens, one in each hand
Write your name with your dominant hand. OK
Write your name with your non-dominant hand. Terrible.
Now write your name with both hands, the non-dominant mirroring the dominant. You can do it.

Now that was a surprise. It's much more legible in tandem.

 

[MissileDaughter]

wow. that is neat.

 

[rbeckey]

Monk is a detective with obsessive/compulsive disorder who must wipe his hands after he touches anything, and sterilizes his dishes, counts parking meters, etc. It would be an OK show for a kid to watch, except they probably wouldn't understand. Not even any cursing, which seems to be the big thing on TV these days. Your reference to sterilizing writing utensils struck a cord, that's all.

 

[DynaSoar]

Originally posted by eugenefl
Alright, so when do we connect a computer to the brain? I want to surf the web in real time and see everything in 3d! I could go into the FlisKits "Virtual Store" and handle rockets! We could have virtual rocket launches online! AHHHH! (Insert Keanu Reeves "WHOA" here!)

I am really baffled by the brain. It's a pile of meat with flowing juices and it "does something!" What's interesting about the human anatomy in general is that our skeletal structure and protective systems is designed with regards to an order of importance. (i.e. - the brain gets the skull, the heart gets that funky cage, the groin area gets...ugh, well...there goes my theory!)

We can already connect a few nerves to a computer, but that's just a way to push a button without moving your finger. Transfering of complex information, especially mirroring what'd normally be perceived by senses, we need to know way, way more about how the brain does what it does. We know next to nothing about how it processes.

Baffled is correct. Me too. I'm high enough up in this business to know of most, and know many of, the top people, and for some of them to know me. I, and they, are more baffled that you, I promise. Baffled, and how it makes us act, is our business.

Here's one for the girls:
Get a stopwatch and a yardstick.
Separate a group of people into guys and girls.
Have the guys see how long they can balance the yardstick on the tip of their right finger. Time them.
Have the girls do the same. Time them.
The guys do lots better. Guys do this sort of stuff all the time anyway, so it's not surprising.
Now, have them do it again, but this time, give them a word to spell, *backwards* when they start balancing. Make it a very difficult word to spell even forwards, like Alburquerque or homogeneity.
The girls will do no better or worse than they did before.
The guys will all fall to pieces. They will do no better than the girls, and sometimes worse.
The girls will get a big kick.
The guys will get embarrased, but they'll get over it.*

The reason is brain lateralization/specialization. Guys' brains are a lot more specialized; different things/functions are focused more intensely in smaller areas. Girls' brains are less sepcialized; everything is spread out, and most functions use parts of the brain that are more spread out. The same number of parts and cells, but just more distributed.

The area for producing spoken language, Broca's area, is on the left side, right next to the area that controls the right hand. When guys try to use these two parts simultaneously, there's competition for resources and conflict between different signals coming from areas so close together. They interfere. Girls, being more distributed, don't have nearly as much conflict when it comes to multitasking things from "nearby" areas.


* Except this one guy who held it against me the entire semester and gave me a bad teacher review at the end of the semester, the only bad one I had in 4 years. When I explained what happened to the department head, he threw it out.

 

[Pippen]

Originally posted by rbeckey
Monk is a detective with obsessive/compulsive disorder who must wipe his hands after he touches anything, and sterilizes his dishes, counts parking meters, etc.

Good thing he isn't teamed up with Sergeant Joe Friday.

Sorry for the tone. See how ignorance breeds suspicion? I really ought to consider watching more TV...