Does anyone else read backwards

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I do this too, and I too found this article after searching for an explanation. I am dyslexic and use my fork eating like a lefty but write like a righty!!!! I thought it had something to do with Dyslexia. One problem i have found with it, is that it makes it very hard to learn from text books that have a structure designed to be read a certain way, such as maths text books etc.

I read fiction the normal way but the book has to be really good otherwise I put it down after 10 minutes. I think the internet makes this not a problem as you can search for what you want No need for books anymore!!!!!!! I do it too Right handed btw.. I think its right about the subconcious way of finding a quick way to "see" the main point of the article, the structure, Setup, etc Maybe its a "lazy" technique some of us "grow" by reading too much waste-information, if you know what I mean Does this make sense for you?

I do the same, I usually drink with my left because I can't hold any cup with my right hand -. Hey everyone, I'm right handed yet read backwards, or skim back then read forwards. I think it is about problem solving and speed. I can't believe it took me this long to google this lol. I also do this especially news articles. I'd love to understand the psychology of why I and others lol do this. Just found this article too. I've realised that I tend to work backwards in a paragraph Not sure why, but glad I eventually googled it and found some others with the same thing.

I'm right-handed! I also play piano and one or two other instruments I think my brain wants to "skip to the end" and then work back. Thanks for all the contributions above. The next time you have a one sided headache. Try reading a page backwards. Usually releases some tension in my head. So glad I googled and found this blog. I just read a magazine article backwards as I often do and realised I found it such a pleasant way to read.

Joined Jul 26, I don't think I understand the question I might have spelled that wrong Joined Feb 18, You're weird.

Just kidding. You've developed a habit. KristaTX said:. Joined Feb 28, I do weird things like that, too Joined Sep 15, I do read words backward, but that's caused by a combination of a love of palindromes, being tricked by an article written by a "Loof Lirpa" which if I'd read the name backward, would have clued me in , and the humorous if unfortunate placement of the English as a Second Language acronym on a school room door ESOL placed in a circle So yeah, I do it, too.

Joined Oct 29, Oh great! Does this mean I'm possessed???? Joined May 17, I can write perfectly, from right to left in a mirror image. Another issue in my case: I could not read articles or connectors a, the, and if they were at the end of the line without context unless I tried to decipher the code. English was not my first language, but is my main language. Thanks Maria, The meaning came through even in the absence of the articles I am sure. It is a funny thing. As a writer, I obsess over word choice all the time.

A vs the can occupy an embarrassing amount of my time and attention. Nonetheless I can read several paragraphs without looking any word up and still get where the story is going and what is happening. Gist gist gist. I was able to read it fairly easily. Although this would apply to all habits, he focuses on new movement patterns and being able to read upsidedown.

Thank you for sharing that link, Martha! It was fun reading from all directions and not hard at all. Thanks again. This is Sharon, actually. I was able to read the text, except the neocortex part. I was unaware of the pattern. It reminds me of when I was studying Hebrew, and after I learned the alphabet and was trying to read, the teacher encouraged us to move beyond a letter by letter approach and begin memorizing the shapes of whole words.

I was able to read part ofthe text. I also found it much easier to make out complete words if I scrunched up my eyes to deliberately put it out of focus. Interestingly, when I read the text, I was cognitively brain dead….

So I gave up quite easily. If I had, I probably would have quickly guessed at least the vowels. Easy enough to read. I noticed that the substitutions were approximately the same shape, and went from there. For months on end, we mostly saw the same people, over and over.

My brain I suppose got used to being able to recognize everyone I met, as there were only people there, and I knew them by sight.

It was not pleasant. I have never seen this written about, but when I shared it with friends and family from the same village, at least half told me they experienced the same thing.

I suspect modern technologies might have eliminated this, as we had no TV there, and of course no internet, and only saw faces we knew. Nice to meet you! What an interesting story and idea!!! I would interpret what you experienced as a perceptual habit. Habits are fast processes that are outcome-independent. So washing your hands to get dirt off is a goal-directed action with the goal being filth removal.

But washing your hands for the 20th time in a row is a habit. The goal was long ago achieved and now the action is simply happening over and over with no dependency or contingency as scientists like to say on the hygienic state of the hands.

Both goal-directed actions and habits have their advantages. Habits are far faster and take less processing. Goal-directed actions make no assumptions and are useful in new circumstances and therefore may be more accurate. Perception is similar to action with respect to habit vs not. Why go through the more prolonged neural process of detecting the person from the ground up so to speak, without any assumptions?

It would be much faster to simply get a touch of information and then make a habit perception, which in the case of the person town, is likely to be correct.

I suspect that is exactly what you and your friends were doing in your small village. You eventually extinguished it and learned to perceive people with fewer assumptions and more time. Glad you find it interesting. My brain was convinced I knew whoever I could find a rough match for and I was actively searching for the name in my brain.

It was 30 or so years ago, but the feeling was so disconcerting that I remember it well today. Each time I went to the city, I had to go through the reminding-myself process. And it was pretty amusing to observe in myself. Your mentioning the anxiety associated with your perception that you know strangers, reminds me again of something that I have experienced. But I was strongly reminded of this as I read your original comment and again when I read your reply. I am thinking as I write this that perhaps it is simply due to the person being on my mind.

Memories are flooding my thoughts and priming my perceptions. Yes, I read it quite easily, and the less I thought about it, the easier it got so yes at the end I was reading at a normal rate. I did get stuck at the 4 followed by minority: got minority, but because 4 was by itself, I read it as 4 rather than A and stopped and tried to figure it out unsuccessfully then plunged on.

And one of these days, I am going to send you some photos of a very cool neuron sculpture that I took for you. Yes Allyson, The lack of context for the 4 made reading it very difficult. Really looking forward to the pic of the neuron sculpture!!! It required some persistence, as I was used to seeing other scrambles that you can read almost instantly for example, there was one which removed all of the vowels.

This took longer, and I thought briefly about giving up. I had to look at the whole item for perhaps 5 seconds, then it became very clear and easy to read. Doubt my experience differed much from that of others. I could read everything else, and it did get much easier as I went along. I could tell that numbers were being substituted for letters which they physically resemble. Interestingly, it seemed like I could feel my brain doing something different than usual, like when I used to study Spanish lit in Spanish.

Or maybe I was imagining that part. Hi Dr. When i went back to read the sentence again, its only then I could see the rules followed eg. I think when the letters were replaced with the closest looking letter or digits eg. It looks like the specific neural networks associated with the correct word gets activated when I see the approximation of the correct word, hence making it easier to read the sentence.

Certainly similarity and familiarity plays a significant role in reading this sentence. Loved to think about it. Thanks so much for this. It was a little bit hard in the beginning as I am not a native English speaker. I was trying to look for the rules or the codes to start with, but as I moved to the second line, words just jumped out and I had no problem to figure out the rest.

A lady aged 80 did very well. I was surprised that she could read it without any pause on her first try.