Those letter combinations, the bigrams, are likely important building blocks that are used to recognize familiar letter patterns, especially during the early stages of learning to read. Think Wordle.

In fact, we can’t help it. Our brain craves patterns (Bor, 2012). The talent to recognize patterns is something most people don’t know they need or realize that they already have.

W e start to talk before we can read, so hearing words, and getting familiar with their sounds, is obviously a critical part of learning a language. But in order to read, and especially in order ...

This article was originally published with the title “ Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise ” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 299 No. 6 (December 2008) doi:10. ...