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There's a word or expression for the tendency for people to read ahead according to their expectations based on an intuition of syntax, rather than what is actually written. For example, they might overlook that fact that the word "is" occurs twice in a sentence. Anyone know what I'm talking about? I looked here for clues, but no luck. : (
Last edited by Hydra; 10/03/06 09:18 AM.
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I think the word you're looking for is "reader." Everybody does this to a certain extent. It's the reason garden path sentences are such a problem.
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This is not what I understood Hydra to have asked Faldage.
I think he (??she?? Sorry, I didn't go check the personal info. before writing this) seems to ask if there is a name when we skip over a word.
As an example, consider this information about refractive solids taken from a lengthy document on how to read lab specifications to analyze the quality of shampoos, foam bath and cleaners:
The percentage of refractive solids, also called refractive index, is the amount of ingredients in your
formula versus the amount of water. A litre of a product
with a refractive percent of 38 contains 38 centilitres
of ingredients and 62 centilitres of water. So, the
product is composed of 38% ingredients and 62% water.
The percentage of refractive solids is not the measure
of "activity" (also called anionic solids - the ingredients
that actually do the work)." It is, though, a good
indication of the activity. The percentage of activity is
is always a few points below the percentage of solids.
This is a key point to verify when comparing the quality of
products. The scale, just like the Richter scale, denotes
important changes even though the number changes may be
small. A higher concentration of only 2% can make the
difference between a product that is effective and one that
is not.
A reader will commonly skip over the second "is" in the last sentence of the second paragraph; not even notice that is has incorrectly been written twice.
Apart from "inattention" is there a name for that?
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I was thinking of a psychology test I saw once. It has a yellow, triangular road sign with the words:
Caution: the
the road is wet.
(or something of the sort) with the sentence broken so the first "the" ended the first half and the second "the" began the second half of the sentence.
A phrase was used for the fact that most people, when shown this particular sign, will fail to notice that "the" occurs twice. It had a little do with a cognitive bias based on the presupposition that "road signs never contain grammatical errors".
But the chapter went on to describe the tendency for people who are reading in their native language to know or predict what word (especially correlative) is coming based on those preceding. We don't read word-by-word but make constant computational short-cuts by extrapolation.
If I remember this correctly, it was some kind of "correct usage conditioning" which creates a bias toward the correct interpretation (the reason even experienced editors can occasionally "overlook" a textual mistake) and is loosely tied in with the "Stroop effect"; that is, the reason it is difficult to quickly read off the COLOUR of these words.
Green
Red
Yellow
Blue
"(Something) inhibition", perhaps.
The old, ratty psychology book in question was opened at random in a doctor's waiting room about a year ago. The term might be out of date anyway. Maybe I dreamt it.
But oh this blasted loganamnosis! Make it stop! Make it stop!
Last edited by Hydra; 10/04/06 01:17 PM.
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Since this drifted into the subject of shampoos, perhaps the reading tendency term to offer is 'conditioning'?  Recalling from a science book, /// PARIS\\ /// IN THE\\ THE SPRING was an example. Clearly the disability that misses the duplication is 'speed reading'.
ÅΓª╥┐↕§
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I don't think I'd call it a disability, A11. I'd say it's closer to a survival technique. Just think of how far behind we'd we'd all be if we paused our thoughts on every word.
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Wouldn't it be a manifestation of our desire to find meaningful patterns; to avoid cognitive dissonance? Akin to the mondegreen phenomenon?
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Quote:
Wouldn't it be a manifestation of our desire to find meaningful patterns; to avoid cognitive dissonance? Akin to the mondegreen phenomenon?
thank you Schiaparelli.
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