Paris in the the Spring

Paris in the the Spring is a phrase often used in an informal psychological test. The phrase "Paris in the the Spring" is written with an extra "the". A subject is asked to read the text, and will often jump to conclusions and fail to notice the extra "the", especially when there is a line break between the two thes.[1] The reason that the second ‘the’ is skipped is because of saccades, jerky movements that eyes make when looking around. The brain counteracts these movements by steadying them and making everything appear smooth. While the brain is using saccadic movements to read, it searches for the most important words and skips over the less important ones, and fills them in using the words around it and what the brain sees when it quickly skips over it. For instance, in ‘Paris in the the Spring’, the eyes will read Paris and quickly move ahead to Spring, and just glance over ‘in the the’, leading the mind to completely disregard the second ‘the’.[2]

References

Eysenck, Michael; Keane, Mark (2005). Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook (5th ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 2. ISBN 9781841693590. Retrieved 21 July 2017.
Drieghe, D., Rayner, K., & Pollatsek, A. (2005). Eye movements and word skipping during reading revisited. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(5), 954.

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[1] Eysenck, Michael; Keane, Mark (2005). Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook (5th ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 2. ISBN 9781841693590. Retrieved 21 July 2017.

[2] Drieghe, D., Rayner, K., & Pollatsek, A. (2005). Eye movements and word skipping during reading revisited. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(5), 954.