Credits: Social Media
Brain automatically corrects spelling errors even when you don’t spot them, says study
Have you ever had to read a text message repeatedly to spot a spelling error? A recent study finally answers why we fail to notice obvious mistakes.
The way our brain works is truly intriguing. Although it is responsible for processing short texts and visuals we often see on social media, the same is to blame for making us ignore certain errors.
Brain processes short texts within seconds
We scroll and swipe through images and texts on social media quite rapidly, yet we can comprehend almost everything we see.
Researchers from New York University have revealed how long the brain typically takes to process digital information, especially shot overlay texts, and the final figure is mind-blowing.
Approximately 150 milliseconds or about the speed of a blink of an eye is the time it takes for the brain to detect the “basic linguistic structure.” The experiment also found that the mind perceives images and texts similarly – “whose essence can be grasped quickly from a single glance.”
While reading was more of a leisurely activity back in the day, digital content has made the experience quicker and more fragmented.
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The shift from long sentences in books to short texts in phone notifications or social media has influenced our brain’s ability to process language and make “snap decisions based on it.”
The reason we ignore spelling errors
The brain’s ability to process language quickly and act upon it is impressive, but there’s one drawback.
Scientists believe that speed indicates that the brain’s at-a-glance approach means it judges a sentence by its basic structure, but not necessarily the other aspects such as grammar.
The rapid response results in small errors going unnoticed and in only around 400 milliseconds the brain appears to “correct” the mistake and read it as if it were fully grammatical.
“This suggests that the brain not only quickly recognizes phrase structure but also automatically corrects small mistakes, said NYU graduate student Nigel Flower.
Therefore, when you deliberately miss certain spelling errors, the brain automatically fixes them, thus convincing you that the sentence is grammatically correct.
