MIT researchers say theyâve found what may be the most challenging tongue twister -- "pad kid poured curd pulled cod."

"If anyone can say this [phrase] ten times quickly, they get a prize," said a statement from Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel, an MIT psychologist who helped discover the tongue twister through a study alongside others at MIT and at Wellesley College, Haskins Laboratories in Connecticut, Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and the University of Southern California.

Their study focused on trying to learn more about how the human brain works by comparing two types of tongue twisters.

Part of the research involved having volunteers say combinations of alternating words.

One particular list of words â âpad kid poured curd pulled codâ â turned out to be so difficult that the test subjects couldn't even get through it, the researchers said this week when they unveiled their findings at the 166th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Francisco.

Matt Rocheleau can be reached at matthew.rocheleau@globe.com. Looking for more coverage of area colleges and universities? Go to our Your Campus pages.

