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recoverer

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Mind game
Jul 26^th, 2007 at 5:20pm

I hope the below works, since I pasted it from an email.

Count every " F" in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...
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The letter F appears 6 times.
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The human mind has a problem reading the word of.

Here's another one some of you have seen.

O lny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.

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 deosn't mtta er in waht 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 tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if
you can raed tihs psas it on !!

Psas Ti ON !

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hawkeye Super Member Offline Afterlife Knowledge Member Posts: 886 canada Gender:	Re: Mind game Reply #1 - Jul 26^th, 2007 at 5:24pm how cool I had no problem reading at all.
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juditha

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Re: Mind game
Reply #2 - Jul 26^th, 2007 at 6:00pm

Hi Recoverer I can only count 3 f's

I remember at school,that this teacher in the english class asked us all a question and he said, "Theres 1 duck in front of a duck,and 1 duck behind a duck and 1 duck in the middle,how many ducks are there.
So i said thats makes 3 ducks and he told me i was wrong that there were 5 ducks and i couldnt get where he got 5 ducks and i still cant get it,i still think there were 3 ducks and not 5.

Love and God bless Love juditha

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recoverer

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Re: Mind game
Reply #3 - Jul 26^th, 2007 at 7:13pm

Juditha:

Supposedly most people count three. People run into difficulty because their mind misses the word "OF." I know my mind missed it, because I also counted 3.

Regarding the duck thing:
2 ducks (1 duck in front of 1 duck) + 2 ducks (1 duck behind 1 duck) + 1 (the duck inbetween the 2 sets of 2 ducks) = 5 ducks.

I've heard that if we can't pass these sort of mental tests, we aren't allowed into heaven. Just kidding! Just kidding!

Quote:

Hi Recoverer I can only count 3 f's

I remember at school,that this teacher in the english class asked us all a question and he said, "Theres 1 duck in front of a duck,and 1 duck behind a duck and 1 duck in the middle,how many ducks are there.
So i said thats makes 3 ducks and he told me i was wrong that there were 5 ducks and i couldnt get where he got 5 ducks and i still cant get it,i still think there were 3 ducks and not 5.

Love and God bless Love juditha

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Vicky

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Re: Mind game
Reply #4 - Jul 27^th, 2007 at 2:22am

Wow, I only got 3 the first time. That's so weird. I carefully ran my eyes over each letter too!

I love that mixed up paragraph. It's so weird how it's really easy to read. I grew up with reading problems and had a tough time in school most of the time. The way that paragraph looks is what reading was like for me most of the time. My dad taught me tricks to get around it which I still use to this day, although I don't have quite as tough time now as I did when I was a kid.

We were taught chess from an early age, which helped my reading because we were taught to hold in our mind as many next possible moves we could think of, including what moves we could make if the other person made this move or that move. The same with reading. I had to think of the possible words each word could be, and as I got better at that I came to expect what the next possible words in the rest of the sentence would be. I found that I could hold large amounts of information visually in my mind. As an adult I realized how it works. This might not make sense the way I'm saying it, but I learned to read with my mind and not with my eyes. If I read with my eyes then I get letters and numbers messed up. If I read what I see in my mind's eye then I usually don't have any problem at all.

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Author of Persephone's Journey (Amazon.com)

http://www.vickyshort.blogspot.com/

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pulsar

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Re: Mind game
Reply #5 - Jul 27^th, 2007 at 2:12pm

Hi there, thanks for the mindplays.

The problem (for me it was) lies within "a duck", for me at first it looked like:
D (the one in front of "a duck" )
D (one duck in the middle, seen as the "a duck" (lol) which has one duck in front and behind it)
D (the one behind "a duck")

So the "a duck" (sounds stupid to write it like this

) was seen as the one duck in the middle, what leads to the conclusion : there have to be three ducks.
I think the mind mixes it up, because there are three in five ducks, that have a clear description (they have a "place to be") , in the front, in the middle and behind, and we completely forget (or do not even mind) that "a duck" could be any duck, let's say around a lake (their natural "home"

)
In fact, the mind concentrates more on the word "ONE" > "there is ONE duck in front "a duck", ONE duck behind "a duck" and ONE in the middle >ONE in front + ONE behind + ONE in the middle makes three.
It seems really like the ONE makes the mind paying more attention on the ducks wich are described as "ONE duck", so "a duck", that could be really any duck from whereever it may be, kind of "vanishes". The ONE gives three out of five ducks kind of a personalisation, the two ducks, that have the description "a duck" are not seen as very important, the mind makes one of the two "a duck"s and combines it with the ONE duck in the middle, because the "a duck" has not a place like the ones, that are described as "ONE duck". > ONE in front of "a", ONE behind "a", and ONE in the middle, > so "a duck" is seen as the ONE in the middle.

D (ONE duck in front of "a duck") (I hope it helps to understand my weird interpretation of the failure..)
D ("a duck")
D (ONE duck in the middle)
D ("a duck")
D (One duck behind "a duck")

Now I confused myself, hopefully not anyone of you

swim with the ducks...

pulsar

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it is determined.

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Kate

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Re: Mind game
Reply #6 - Jul 27^th, 2007 at 2:42pm

I counted 3 ducks too: A leader, a middle, and a follower. I'm horrible at math and I guess I feel better knowing someone else thought 3 ducks too. Did you guys ever play Duck Duck Goose as a kid? Grin

Ahem... anyway..... I liked the paragraph Recoverer. I didn't have any trouble reading it and it was cool as I felt my eyes unscramble the words with just a glance. Cheesy

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Starboom Full Member Offline Posts: 135 Norway Gender:	Re: Mind game Reply #7 - Jul 27^th, 2007 at 7:27pm As I see it, the answer to the duck question can be both 3 and 5. It depends on how you choose to read it. And since it can be both 3 and 5, it can easily be 7, 9, 11, and so on. A trick question, for sure.
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spooky2

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Re: Mind game
Reply #8 - Jul 27^th, 2007 at 7:52pm

I don't get why 5 should be the only possibility. It could be every odd (because of the middle one) number from three on, there's always one "in front of" and one "behind". But maybe my English is too bad.

Recoverer: Yes, that's very cool! Maybe you remember when you learnt reading, back then you couldn't do this, but had to work hard on every word, getting it by reading the single letters after another; fast fluid reading requires the "with one view" ability; very amazing that it works this way.
I first got 5 "F", I missed repeatedly the second one in the line with two of it.

Spooky

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"I'm going where the pavement turns to sand"&&Neil Young, "Thrasher"

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