The brain quirk that explains why we misread documents

Author : Rob Ashton

Posted : 09 / 09 / 24

Street magician performs the ball and cup trick An embarrassing mishap befell me during my recent summer break.

It happened when I was searching for the bathroom in an unfamiliar West Country pub. Following several signs had led me to a glass door, which was labelled with what I read as the word ‘TOILETS’ in large, capital letters.

So I pushed it open.

Then I immediately stumbled and fell down a sharp one-foot drop, almost face-planting into a pinball machine on the other side.

Fortunately, I injured nothing but my pride. So I gathered my composure, smiled weakly at the small group of customers who’d paused their pints mid-sip to watch the spectacle, and continued on my way to the loos.

What happened

It was only on my way back that I read the sign on the door again – properly this time. It did not, in fact, say ‘toilets’ at all.

Instead, there – in big, clear, capital letters – were the words ‘MIND THE STEP’.

(I promise I’d had nothing stronger to drink than a decaf flat white.)

Loyal Writing Matters readers may have already diagnosed my problem: I’d read what I expected to read, not what was actually written. And this is also often why writing at work goes wrong. (See our previous issue, Why people misread your messages.)

Most reading is not reading at all: it’s prediction. The first thing our brain registers is what it’s expecting to see, based on what we’ve seen before. Only afterwards does it check if it was right.

This is true not just of reading but of all vision. (Magicians lean heavily on this brain quirk – it’s what makes magic seem ‘magic’.)

But this isn’t a bug; it’s a feature. It’s what allows us to process text so quickly.

If we didn’t do it, our reading speed would slow to a snail’s pace. We certainly wouldn’t be able to rely on the written word to communicate as much as we do now.

We use this method for everything we read, whether that’s a text message from a friend, a ten-page report or (as in my case) important safety instructions.

Familiarity stops us reading

But it’s not a perfect process. Often the brain skips the second, vital step and it forgets to check.

The more certain it is of what’s coming next, the more likely it is not to give it a second glance.

And that’s precisely what had happened in that pub.

I had already followed at least two other ‘toilets’ signs in its dimly lit interior, the second of which pointed straight to that door. So my brain must have assumed that the sign above it would be the same.

Yet what it actually said versus what I read made a big difference – it was the deciding factor between an uneventful loo break and mild public humiliation.

Crucial difference

To be clear, I did look at the sign, and I did think I’d read it. But I was so sure of what I’d seen that I didn’t give it a second glance.

And that’s the crucial difference.

Readers can be so full of expectation that they don’t see what’s right in front of them.

This isn’t helped by the way we often write.

Stuffing a report full of boilerplate text, for example, leads the reader to think that they’ve read it all before. So we end up sending the rest of their brain to sleep while predictive mode takes over.

Digital Valium

Another sure-fire way to achieve this effect is by using Documentese (the strange, arcane language that we reserve only for work documents). It acts like digital Valium, dulling the reader’s critical faculties so that they pay less attention to the words that are right in front of them.

If you’ve ever had an unexpected (or no) reaction to something you’ve written, that could be why.

And it’s not just documents. If you’ve ever given what you thought were simple instructions, only for someone to fail to follow them, prediction might also be to blame.

Surprisingly, the issue doesn’t necessarily lie in the part they misread but rather the part that came before it.

As soon as their brain thinks it knows what comes next, they’ll probably still look at the words that follow, but they won’t actually see them.

Dangerous certainty

This affects us as writers too, as it’s a big problem when we’re proofreading our own work.

We’re not guessing what comes next: we know what comes next. We wrote it, after all. So our predictive reading goes into overdrive, and we end up missing big mistakes.

The more certain we are, the less carefully we read what’s right in front of our eyes.

Sometimes, we hurt nothing more than our pride. But often the consequences are far more serious.

Write so people read

Fortunately, there are many ways to bypass this expectation effect* when we’re writing. And they all have one common aim: to stop people thinking they’ve read it all before.

If you use templates (or adapt previous versions of standard documents), make sure you change as much of any boilerplate text as possible, especially at the start of new sections or when introducing the document itself. Don’t just rely on the standard content.

Make sure you change headings too, and never use generic subheads like ‘Introduction’ or ‘Part 1’, ‘Part 2’ etc. That really will make readers feel like they’ve read it all before.

If you’re struggling to persuade colleagues to ditch the Documentese, feel free to send them to this visual guide.

You may also want to check out our Knowledge Hub article (and free checklist) on how to proofread more effectively.

*The Expectation Effect, a book by science writer David Robson, explains how important prediction is in many other areas of our lives, too. It’s well worth a read.

Image credit: Oliver_P / Shutterstock