Typoglycemia

A cognitive principle in our brain can read the words as a whole and not letter by letter, unless the word is unknown.

The generated words are anagrams (mixed letters) of the original word, but our brain has no trouble in giving them a meaning.

The principle is identical with some typographical or spelling errors for which the brain adapts without problems.

Contrary to what can be read on the Internet, one of the few published studies is Raeding Wrods With Jubmled Lettres; Reading Words with Jumbled Letters; There Is a Cost, Keith Rayner, Sarah J. White, Rebecca L. Johnson, and Simon P. Liversedge, Psychological Science, 17 (3), 192-193, (2006) which shows that the reading speed of a typoglycemic text is reduced by 11%. This study was conducted in 2006, long after the publication of the internet meme that still circulating on social networks.

Moreover, this research has nothing to do with Cambridge, Oxford or Stanford, but comes from the University of Massachusetts.

The 2006 study demonstrates several results:

— the transposition of the letters inside the word is much less expensive (in terms of quality/speed of reading) than the modification of the final letters.

— the transposition of the final letters is less expensive than the transposition of the initial letters.

— the transposition of letters between 2 morphemes is expensive: susnhine is more difficult to read than sunhsine