A Helpful Tool To Decipher Illegible Letters

[by_a_Lady]

Over the time I have received some really illegible letters, but luckily I was able to transcribe all of them by employing a little trick I developed. You'll only need a few basic things:

 

• The letter.
• Your phone.
• Your voice.

 

The human brain is great at noticing patterns (in fact, it tries so hard that it sometimes sees consistency where there is none); to notice patterns, however, a large set of data is needed, not just a detailed look at a single bit of information.

Quickly skim over a badly written letter and you'll notice that once you guess the first couple words and get going, your brain somehow manages to decipher words you couldn't even guess in a matter of moments - that's pattern recognition at its most glorious, that is, when you don't even notice you're noticing patterns. Unfortunately, this process oftentimes takes up so much of your concentration that you don't really remember what you just read.

Open your phone's settings and enable speech-to-text. Go to the note-taking app of your choice and activate the dictation mode, pick up the letter and start reading aloud as your brain recognises the characters on the page. The output might not always be 100% correct, but as long as it's close enough it should be good for our purposes.

 

 

Hope it helps,

Dominique

Edited June 24, 2018 by by_a_Lady

[PAKMAN]

Very interesting! I'll have to try this, thanks!

[BorisoftheStars]

That does sound like it could work, and it sounds interesting too.

[AlohaLani787]

and you'll notice that once you guess the first couple words and get going, your brain somehow manages to decipher words you couldn't even guess in a matter of moments -

 

 

Yes, this is absolutely what I've noticed too. My eyes are instantly drawn to the words I recognize, even on a full page of writing.

 

 

Unfortunately, this process oftentimes takes up so much of your concentration that you don't really remember what you just read.

 

 

LOL, again so true. That's why I find myself reading over the same page a hundred times!

 

 

Open your phone's settings and enable speech-to-text. Go to the note-taking app of your choice and activate the dictation mode, pick up the letter and start reading aloud as your brain recognises the characters on the page. The output might not always be 100% correct, but as long as it's close enough it should be good for our purposes.

 

This never occurred to me, but I can recognize a great idea when I read one and this is what I'll try next time I encounter a page full of scribble. Thanks for the idea.

Hope it helps,

Dominique

Edited August 17, 2018 by AlohaLani787