Your brain doesn't read every word. It reads in chunks — "PARIS," "IN THE," "SPRING" — predicting what comes next. By the time your eyes hit the second THE, your brain has moved on. The redundant THE didn't fit the prediction, so it got deleted before you saw it. The fix isn't sharper eyes — it's a slower second pass.

You can read Blue faster than you can name the red ink it's written in. Years of practice turned reading automatic — it runs whether you ask it to or not. In round two, two answers raced: read the word, or name the ink. Reading is the trained one, so it wins every time, and the wrong word reaches your tongue first.

Two experiments, one trap. Your brain handed you a fast answer before you'd really looked. Brilliant most days; dangerous the moment something is new. The cure is slow: point at each word, name each color, look twice. I was sure that cave meant defense — I crossed it out and wrote bait only because I looked again. Being sure feels like knowing. Usually it's just being fast.