SOME words really do conjure up mental images, and that can drive you to distraction 鈥� literally.
Zachary Estes at the University of Warwick, UK, and his team asked students to identify a target letter appearing briefly at the top or bottom of a computer screen. Just before the letter appeared, some saw the word 鈥渉at鈥� in the centre of the screen. Those students were slower and less accurate at identifying the target letter if it then appeared at the top of the screen (Psychological Science, ).
Estes thinks the brain associates 鈥渉at鈥� with the 鈥渦p鈥� position, and conjures up a mental picture of a hat high on the screen. This distracts you from identifying a letter occupying the same space. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like putting two pictures on top of each other 鈥� it鈥檚 difficult to see either of them clearly,鈥� he says.
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