Originally Posted by phey
Have you ever seen that trick where a common phase is laid out on two or three lines, and a word repeats, but right at the line break: ie,
Can you
you spot the
mistake?

Here is a link to a better one: http://www.marcofolio.net/other/15_cool_word_illusions.html

When things don't read as well as we would expect, sometimes our brains just naturally substitute what "ought" to be there. I think it is just a sign of knowing the language very well. I do it, my son does it, and this is what makes proof-reading your own papers after a long day of working on them not very fool-proof. It really is a cool aspect of how our brains work! I also like the one where you can only have the first and last letter of a word in the right order, and still read it just as fluently.

This is why I tell my college students to read aloud their final version - when you read silently you skip and substitute what you think it says. But more often than not the read aloud will catch the mistakes. I think because its a different part of the brain than was doing the writing. But that's just a guess.

DeHe