If you have got this far, you should have looked at a display of an English sentence which you have probably encountered previously.

The display should have been shut before you came here, so that you can no longer see the words in the box.

Please do not look back at the display, until you reach the instruction to do so.

If you saw only a grammatical English sentence when looking at the display, please read on.

If you saw something wrong in the sentence, when you first looked at it, the demonstration cannot work for you, though you may find it interesting to read on anyway.

Experimental instructions:

• If you saw nothing wrong with the display please consider where you saw the word "will".

  You may or may not remember where it was in the display. However it is possible that you will get a surprise when you think about that question.

  If not, read on.

• If the previous question did not lead you to change your opinion that you saw a well-formed English sentence
  then please consider this question: How many words were in the sentence?

  If you previously saw nothing wrong with the sentence, it is possible that you will get a surprise when you think about that question.

  If not, read on.

• Whether you have changed your opinion about what you saw, or not, please click here now.

Maintained by Aaron Sloman
School of Computer Science
The University of Birmingham