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sapinker's profile
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Verified account
@sapinker

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Steven PinkerVerified account

@sapinker

Cognitive scientist at Harvard.

Boston, MA
pinker.wjh.harvard.edu
Joined January 2010

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    Steven Pinker‏Verified account @sapinker Apr 13

    A common letter of the alphabet that most people can't write or recognize - lovely example of how visual shape recognition involves actively parsing material into structural descriptions, not just recording pixels.https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/the-letter-no-one-can-write_us_5ac45205e4b0ac473edb3491 …

    7:40 PM - 13 Apr 2018
    • 128 Retweets
    • 263 Likes
    • U.C. Black Adam Thornton Den Relly Copra_equus Daniel Montoya Kibørd Kuerti Leon Swart C. Zachary Marks SEMIOTICS EЯeview
    15 replies 128 retweets 263 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Michael Fry‏ @MichaelFry9 Apr 13
        Replying to @slimbenny438 @sapinker

        I think it's proof that the human mind is adaptable and can deal with "close enough". Literally no one pens the letter G this way. It's only seen in print.

        2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
      3. Benjamin Smith‏ @slimbenny438 Apr 13
        Replying to @MichaelFry9 @sapinker

        Funny, I literally pen the letter g in that way and have been doing so since I was a kid.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      4. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. augmented.marshall‏ @marshallpittman Apr 13
        Replying to @sapinker

        The difference between the cursive/print and the typewritten (mechanical or electronic) lowercase "g" could almost be enough to explain this disparity of indentification. No one "writes" (cursive or print) a lower case "g" with a right-facing loop. it looks silly!

        2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      3. Osvaldo Doederlein‏ @opinali Apr 14
        Replying to @marshallpittman @sapinker

        The hand gestures to draw that is super unnatural, at least for right-hand writers. I wonder if lefties have a different experience and find it easier to write.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      4. augmented.marshall‏ @marshallpittman Apr 14
        Replying to @opinali @sapinker

        the cursive "g" is deliberately not unnatural to write, which is why it is written in the opposite direction (loop connects on the right, open to the left) than the mechanic/electronic typographic form. Writing is awkward for left-handers, as it was developed for right-handers.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      5. End of conversation
      1. Evan Wilson‏ @EvaniswilsoN Apr 14
        Replying to @sapinker

        “The devils in the G-tails”

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. Jacob Style adult films  📸 🍑 🍆‏ @JacobStyle_xxx Apr 13
        Replying to @sapinker

        I can draw the fancy g from memory, much like the Stussy S of my long-passed middle school days, but writing it in a word just feels so unnatural.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. New conversation
      2. augmented.marshall‏ @marshallpittman Apr 13
        Replying to @sapinker

        There are actually at 3 forms of the lower case letter "g": the open descender form is both written and mechanically/electronically drawn. The looped descender has an almost exclusively written form, the cursive "g" which faces LEFT; and a mech/elect loop form which faces RIGHT!

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      3. 1 more reply
      1. New conversation
      2. Chris Gilmour‏ @illandancient Apr 14
        Replying to @sapinker

        A similar point could be made for lower case A. I understand the two versions originate from the Latin and Greek alphabets.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      3. 🅐nt 🅐llan‏ @antallan Apr 15
        Replying to @illandancient @sapinker

        In fact, the research looked at “a” as well and found that it was *far* less problematic. (This was explicit in a another article.)

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      4. Chris Gilmour‏ @illandancient Apr 15
        Replying to @antallan @sapinker

        Thanks for chasing that up.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      5. End of conversation
      1. Mark McCaskill‏ @markmccaski11 Apr 18
        Replying to @sapinker

        Seriously, they did a study on this? This is a case of people not memorizing a particular font that is easy to recognize in context. It is not the way people learn to write it so it’s hard to replicate.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. Mark Martens‏ @MarkMartens42 Apr 13
        Replying to @sapinker

        My Pattern Recognition model of Intelligence predicted refutation of the 2nd law. https://www.linkedin.com/post/edit/refuting-2nd-law-thermodynamics-mark-martens …

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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