Am I Normal?habits
I automatically read every sign, label, and piece of text that enters my visual field
Automatic text reading is one of the most deeply ingrained cognitive automatisms. Literacy, once acquired, cannot be switched off — the brain's language areas process written text involuntarily before conscious attention can redirect. This is the basis of the Stroop effect, where written colour names interfere with colour identification tasks.
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Related fact
The Stroop effect — demonstrated in 1935 — showed that literate adults cannot avoid reading a word even when specifically trying not to. The interference between word meaning and colour is processed faster than the conscious intention to ignore it.
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