"F" Puzzle Explained ?

[Alan W Deverell]

Very good George - now where is the 7th one:-))) - find that and you
go to the top of the class (just kidding)

Interesting how easily we are deceived by upper case and a bit of
clever word arrangement? I think it's a function of the UPPER Case and
the phonetic values ("OF" sounds like "ov") which the mind uses
instead of the SPELLED pattern which only becomes evident following
closer more deliberate inspection.

Some I showed this to still have not found them all without help.

The lack of simple/good meaning in the sentence is also a distraction
because the mind is working on the literal translation problem as well
in an endeavor to discover the intelligence in the whole sentence.
Without a clear contextual reference the sentence does not stand very
well on it's own.

I would be interested to hear what a qualified journalist or
Grammatical Analyst (English Professor) would make of it.

Fundamentally it's all a matter of "Pattern Recognition" and how good
our mental "Search & Find" tools are.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: George Jones [mailto:ssel@actrix.gen.nz]
>Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 1998 10:20 PM
>To: 'Alan W Deverell'
>Subject: RE: How many "F" s
>
>
>Alan
>Found 3 immediately in 3 seconds, then found the remaining
>three in OF in the next pass - total time 6 sec.

Yes - mostly it is the 2 OF and then the 3nd OF which gets them.

>George
>
>----------
>From:  Alan W Deverell[SMTP:aland@casa.co.nz]
>Sent:  Wednesday, 24 June 1998 18:44
>To:  George Jones
>Subject:  How many "F" s
>
>In the following block of text, how may "F" can you find ?
>Quickly now
>!!!
>
>>>          FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-
>>>          SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
>>>          IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
>>>          EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS.
>
>