December 5, 2023

Count the “f”s in the following paragraph

FINISHED FILES ARE THE
RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC
STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

How many did you count?

There are actually 6 “f”s, but most people only count 3. Why? It seems that the brain has trouble correctly processing the word of. The letter “f” usually makes the /f/ sound, like in fox. In the word of, though, it makes the /v/ sound. As a result, the brain overlooks the word of as it scans for the sound of /f/.