How many 'F's are there in the following sentence. Count the 'F's. (Don't go back and recheck).
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.
(Did you get 3? Apparently most people do. It's actually 6 if you check).
The reason people only see three F's is that when you read a piece of text your eyes scan the words but your brain just selects those that are most interesting and therefore the "of" is ignored three times. You cabn also have text where a small word like "the" end a line and begins the next line (therefore having a repeat word), your brain then just ignores one of the words. If you did it on the same line though then it stands out as an anomily.
As I walked among the daffodils amiring the
the water in the lake I thought about the great
poet. Just what Wordsworth was thinking when he
he wrote his famous poems at the side of these
wonderful bodies of water.
Got all six, but I almost ignored the first "of"...
