“It dseno’t mtaetr in waht oredr the lteetrs in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are at the rghit pclae.”
So you just read that, right? It wasn’t fluent, but your brain made sense of what appeared to be something with no sense. That’s the jumbled words effect, and it serves as an interesting example of how our brains are wired to look for patterns and create meaning when presented with a jumble of information, even if it is messed up. Is it just Psychology?
Here’s a short task for you:
Tihs pargaraph is flul of jmulbed wrods, but you can porbalby raed it aynawy. The huamn barin is aazmnig at dcedonig wrods eevn wehn the lteters are in the wrnog odrer. As lnog as the frist and lsat ltteer of ecah wrod are in the rghit pacle, the bairn can qiuckly unjmbule the txet. It deosn’t mtaetr how mnay ltetres are in teh mdilde, yuor mnid is rrearingeg the wrod bsaed on its shpae, cnotext, and flunecy. Isn’t taht amzanig? Wlel, wlcome to the world of cngitoive pyscholgoy and neurosicne!
Pretty amazing, right? Now let’s dive into why this happens.
The Psychology Behind the Jumbled Text Phenomenon
How Does It Work?
This phenomenon is often called typoglycemia, but it is not an official scientific term. However, it is well known and illustrates the brain's ability to handle words wholly instead of reading letter - by - letter.
Our brains use top-down processing when we read. Instead of processing every letter, we use prior knowledge, context, and expectations to process the information we receive. Reading is not just about single letters; we predict, fill in the blanks, and recognise the shape of familiar words.
So with the first and last letters there, your brain uses your mental shortcuts and decodes the word based on the form and the context of the sentence.
How Our Brains Decode Jumbled Words
The visual word form area (VWFA) of the brain, located in the left hemisphere, is responsible for the recognition of the form of letters and the sequences of letters in words. The VWFA is always activated when we read, although when we are reading jumbled text, it has to work harder because of the inconsistencies.
Research studies within cognitive psychology and neuroscience indicate that when the brain reads, it doesn't read every letter within the word. The brain reads as a unit word or a whole word. This explains why proficient and experienced readers can “read” jumbled text more easily than beginning readers.