火星文中出新词字母顺序颠倒也能读

2012-09-10 00:00:00来源：沪江英语网

　　Have you ever heard about the word "typoglycemia"? No it has nothing to do with hypoglycemia. This neologismis given to a purportedrecent discovery about the cognitive processes behind reading written text. It sounds really sophisticated, while actually not so difficult to explain. First just try to read the email as follow：

　　“typoglycemia”是一个新近产生的合成词，用于描述关于人们阅读行为中的认知过程，是个所谓的新研究成果。听起来相当复杂，它究竟有什么意义呢？试着读一读下面的内容：

Original text

Intended message

"I cdn'uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg: the phaonmneel pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rseearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Scuh a cdonition is arppoiatrely cllaed Typoglycemia .
"Amzanig huh? Yaeh and you awlyas thguoht slpeling was ipmorantt."

"I couldn't believe that I could actually understand what I was reading: the phenomenal power of the human mind. According to a research team at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be in the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without a problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole. Such a condition is appropriately called Typoglycemia.
"Amazing, huh? Yeah and you always thought spelling was important."

　　左边这乱七八糟的一堆是不是也能看懂？现在有点明白“typoglycemia“的含义了吧。人们在阅读的时候，单词内部的字母顺序无关紧要，只要首尾字母在正确的位置，即使其他字母完全打乱，我们也能毫无障碍地读懂文章。这是因为我们阅读时并不把单个字母挨个看过去，而是直接看整个单词，这样的状态就称作“typoglycemia”。怎么样，现在是不是觉得拼写不那么重要了呢？

　　但是，事情也没那么简单。下面例子运用相同的原理，但是它读起来就要难得难得多：

Original text	Intended message
"Anidroccg to crad–cniyrrag lcitsiugnis planoissefors at an uemannd utisreviny in Bsitirh Cibmuloa, and crartnoy to the duoibus cmials of the ueticnd rcraeseh, a slpmie, macinahcel ioisrevnn of ianretnl cretcarahs araepps sneiciffut to csufnoe the eadyrevy oekoolnr."	"According to card-carrying linguistics professionals at an unnamed university in British Columbia, and contrary to the dubious claims of the uncited research, a simple, mechanical inversion of internal characters appears sufficient to confuse the everyday onlooker."

　　“英国哥伦比亚某个大学的正式语言学教授们研究表明，相对于之前并不明确的研究的站不住脚的成果，只要简单机械的将单词的中间字母完全倒序，就足以使读者难以辨认单词。”

　　No such research was carried out at Cambridge University. The creation of such email messages started with a letter to the New Scientist magazine from Graham Rawlinson of Nottingham University in which he discusses his Ph.D. thesis, suggesting to keep two first and final letters of each word：

　　Original text Intended message

　　"In a puiltacibon of New Scnieitst you could ramdinose all the letetrs, keipeng the first two and last two the same, and reibadailty would hadrly be aftcfeed. My ansaylis did not come to much beucase the thoery at the time was for shape and senqeuce retigcionon. Saberi's work sugsegts we may have some pofrweul palrlael prsooscers at work. The resaon for this is suerly that idnetiyfing coentnt by paarllel prseocsing speeds up regnicoiton. We only need the first and last two letetrs to spot chganes in meniang." "In a publication of New Scientist you could randomise all the letters, keeping the first two and last two the same, and readability would hardly be affected. My analysis did not come to much because the theory at the time was for shape and sequence recognition. Saberi's work suggests we may have some powerful parallel processors at work. The reason for this is surely that identifying content by parallel processing speeds up recognition. We only need the first and last two letters to spot changes in meaning."

　　其实哥伦比亚大学并没有做过这样的研究。这些邮件信息始于诺丁汉大学的Graham Rawlinson给新科学杂志寄的有关他博士论文的信件，信中提议杂志出版一期刊物时保留每个单词的前两个和最后两个字母位置不变，这样即使任意改变其他字母的顺序，也几乎不影响人们的阅读能力。他在信中还提到，“我的研究还没有很大成果，因为目前的理论局限于形状和序列的认知。Saberi的研究表明人们可能有某种强大的平行处理信息能力，这显然是由于人们认知内容时平行处理效率更高。我们只需要前两个和最后两个字母来定义意义的变化。”

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