context

Headline hooks

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timeDana Mrkich – I’m noticing a lot more headlines right now that are proving to be misleading once you click through to read the whole article. There is enough going on right now without adding fuel to the fire. People’s nervous systems are having a hard enough time processing the rapid changes going on without needing to be further triggered by inflammatory headings that bend or distort the truth/facts.

When you read a headline, if it triggers you take the time to read the article it links to. Even better, find original sources be it press conferences or documents. Yes that is supposed to be the media’s job to find those sources and report them accurately, but we can’t count on that process happening for many reasons. Being first in with the news has meant that there is less time for proper investigative reporting, not to mention reporters being told by editors who are told by powers further up what they can say and can’t say.

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Natalie Wolchover ~ Breaking the Code: Why Yuor Barin Can Raed Tihs

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You might not realize it, but your brain is a code-cracking machine.

For emaxlpe, it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm.

S1M1L4RLY, Y0UR M1ND 15 R34D1NG 7H15 4U70M471C4LLY W17H0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17.

Passages like these have been bouncing around the Internet for years. But how do we read them? And what do our incredibly low standards for what’s legible say about the way our brains work?

According to Marta Kutas, a cognitive neuroscientist and the director of the Center for Research in Language at the University of California, San Diego, the short answer is that no one knows why we’re so good at reading garbled nonsense. But they’ve got strong suspicions.

“My guess is that context is very, very, very important,” Kutas told Life’s Little Mysteries.

We use context to pre-activate the areas of our brains that correspond to what we expect next, she explained. For example, brain scans reveal that if we hear a sound that leads us to strongly suspect another sound is on the way, the brain acts as if we’re already hearing the second sound. Similarly, if we see a certain collection of letters or words, our brains jump to conclusions about what comes next. “We use context to help us perceive,” Kutas said. Continue reading →