I got a dig bick.
Shocked? Why? Because I got a dig bick? Well let me tell you that I don’t just have a dig bick, but I have a REALLY dig bick. Still shocked? Well you shouldn’t be, because it makes no sense.
If you still don’t understand, then read the top line over and over, very carefully.
Did you notice that you also misread the next phrase down as well?
On the last phrase in the image you probably didn’t read incorrectly, but you would have most likely checked it more than once to see if you were ‘caught out’ again.
We know from the now famous ‘Cambridge Research Paragraph‘ that when we look at a word we see it as a whole instead of it’s constituent letters. Therefore, as long as the first and last letters remain the same, our minds are happy to unscramble the word for us. Essentially the mind is always trying to find patterns that make sense for us.
A similar thing is happening here. In the first instance, “I got a dig bick”, the top line appears to suggest something rather crude. On reflection it can be seen that what is actually happening is that the first letters of the last two words become transposed in our minds. It is unsure whether this is because the word ‘bick’ doesn’t make sense to our mind, and it starts to readdress the word structure. It could possibly be that the context of ‘I got a’ also leads to the mind to the crude false assumption.
A similar thing is happening in the second paragraph, but instead of the letters being transposed, the two words are.
After being informed of the two errors that the reader has just made, the reader then doesn’t wish to be ‘caught out’ again, ans then will re-read the final sentence numerous times.
Social Media – I got a dig bick
This phenomena doesn’t only work when presented in image format. This means that you can write…
I got a dig bick. You that read wrong. You read that wrong too.
…on your social media feed and still get the same response. It will really freak out some people who will respond before they fully understand what is happening…this is true mind games!