it is the same thing behind those 'your baby can read' DVD's

sP

Most scientists roll their eyes at this stuff, for good reason. There has been a well-needed backlash in recent years against the "animals learning language" thing, even among ape researchers.

... things they are interested in.

Is it primarily a language skill? Or is it something else?

Teh olny prebelm wtih taht tehory is taht hamuns can raed jebmllud up wrods qieut eailsy.

Gotta love that aspect of the human mind!

It would be interesting to see if they could ID words that were jumbled up like that as well, or if they only recognize them in a specific order.

protimant. txonteC ryev si

Cloud siht? ader ailesy uyo

The tirck is to keep frist and lsat letetrs in palce and garble the letters between.

I am curious about your reading of my posting. Would you please answer a couple of questions?

Did leaving the initial capitals and the punctuation marks in the text make a difference to your reading of the post? Also, which of the words were the most difficult to decipher? Lastly, do you know - by chance - of any studies on the topic of how much garbling is sufficient to destroy context?

Thanks for your earlier reply and for any answers that you have time to give.

Because then they would not be able to rearrange the letters in their minds to assign meaning.

I hate this "animals learning language" nonsense.

...than reflexively responding to a shape, like figuring out, when confronted with a novel word, what's likely to be a real word from their experience with other real words.

Are you generally skeptical about animal language skills, and if so, why? I think some impressive results have come out of not only primate research, but even work with parrots.

The "apes learning languages" thing has been way over-hyped. They can learn vocabulary by rote, but syntax is beyond them.

I can't find a match via Google or Amazon.