Does anyone have a scientific explanation for this? or why the brain can process it?

Question

Does anyone have a link to a credible source explaining in any sort of detail why one can read the following paragraph with such ease.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

I know this has been around for ages, but I'm writing a short scientific paper on why people can read it and was just wondering if anyone knows of any credible sources. Thanks.

Answer 1

I've heard that we only read every third word, so obviously, the details are not important. I think the better question is, "How do we find misspellings and typos?" You may also consider the way our brain pieces together pictures for movies. It fills in the gaps quite well there, too. Below are many more comments on the same subject.

Answer 2

This paragraph is kind of a hoax, because it's actually quite common for people to be able to read this kind of writing; it's not just for "special people" or "intelligent people" or whatever. This arises from the fact that people generally read the shape/contour of a word rather than the individual letters. As long as all the letters are there (and I think if the first and last ones are in the right places) then the contour of the word will be the same and the word will be legible.

You should be able to find sources for this in some reading/cognitive science journals or textbooks. Do you have access to a university library or an academic journal database? Also, if you are in a department of education or psychology or a related field, ask around to the people in the department and likely someone will be able to help you locate the sources.

Answer 3

This question piqued my interest and I spent 10 minutes looking in my Psy 100 text book for the answer.
The answer lies in the work done by Kosslyn & Koenig (1995), Humphreys et al. (1997) and Corbetta & Shulman (2002) who determined we see the world two ways: bottom-up processing and top-down processing. The first is initiated by stimulus input and the second is guided by knowledge, expectation or belief.
So, since we are reading a letter, we expect the words to make sense. We recognize the beginning and ending letters and put the rest of the letters where they belong. There is also the 'perceptual set' which is the "sum of your assumtions and beliefs that lead you to expect to perceive certain objects or characteristics in particular contexts".

So, basically, our brains are telling us these are words so we recognize them.