Description

Typoglycemia is a neologism for a purported recent discoveryaboutthe cognitive processes involved in reading text. The word isaportmanteau of "typo", for typographical error, and"hypoglycemia".The principle is that readers can comprehend textdespite spellingerrors and misplaced letters in the words. It is anurban legendand Internet meme that appears to be correct.[1] Thefollowingexample of typoglycemic text was circulated on theInternet inSeptember 2003: Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at CmabrigdeUinervtisy,it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrodare, the olnyiprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer beat the rghitpclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitllraed itwouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos notraed erveylteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Although thetext islittered with errors, it is still relatively easy to makeout thewords. No such research was carried out at the UniversityofCambridge.