legelegel
12-19-2007, 07:31 PM
Look through the list of word strings and say aloud the color of the ink in which each one is printed.
Try it with this list, saying "red," "blue," or "green" for each item in turn from left to right:
red blue green blue green red
Easy. But this is much, much, harder:
red blue green blue green red
The reason is that, among literate adults, reading a word is such an over-learned skill that it has become mandatory: You can't will the process "off," even when you don't want to read the words but only pay attention to the ink. That's why you're helped along when the experimenters arrange the ink into a word that also names its color and slowed down when they arrange it into a name for a different color.
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=246c0071-a9cd-46e2-a665-c6e61a45377e
Try it with this list, saying "red," "blue," or "green" for each item in turn from left to right:
red blue green blue green red
Easy. But this is much, much, harder:
red blue green blue green red
The reason is that, among literate adults, reading a word is such an over-learned skill that it has become mandatory: You can't will the process "off," even when you don't want to read the words but only pay attention to the ink. That's why you're helped along when the experimenters arrange the ink into a word that also names its color and slowed down when they arrange it into a name for a different color.
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=246c0071-a9cd-46e2-a665-c6e61a45377e