Reading in the Brain The New Science of How We Read

by Dehaene, Stanislas

• ISBN13: 9780143118053
• ISBN10: 0143118056
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-10-26
• Publisher: Penguin Books

Summary

In this riveting investigation, Dehaene explores every aspect of the ability to read, from its origins to its neural underpinnings. A world authority on the subject, Dehaene reveals the hidden logic of spelling and describes pioneering research on how we process languages.

Author Biography

French scientist Stanislas Dehaene is the director of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit in Saclay, France, professor of experimental cognitive psychology at the College de France, a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Table of Contents

Introduction The New Science of Reading	p. 1
From Neurons to Education	p. 2
Putting Neurons into Culture	p. 3
The Mystery of the Reading Ape	p. 4
Biological Unity and Cultural Diversity	p. 6
A Reader's Guide	p. 7
How Do We Read?	p. 11
The Eye: A Poor Scanner	p. 13
The Search for Invariants	p. 18
Amplifying Differences	p. 21
Every Word Is a Tree	p. 21
The Silent Voice	p. 25
The Limits of Sound	p. 29
The Hidden Logic of Our Spelling System	p. 31
The Impossible Dream of Transparent Spelling	p. 34
Two Routes for Reading	p. 38
Mental Dictionaries	p. 41
An Assembly of Daemons	p. 42
Parallel Reading	p. 46
Active Letter Decoding	p. 47
Conspiracy and Competition in Reading	p. 49
From Behavior to Brain Mechanisms	p. 51
The Brains Letterbox	p. 53
Joseph-Jules Déjerine's Discovery	p. 54
Pure Alexia	p. 57
A Lesion Revealed	p. 58
Modern Lesion Analysis	p. 61
Decoding the Reading Brain	p. 65
Reading Is Universal	p. 69
A Patchwork of Visual Preferences	p. 72
How Fast Do We Read?	p. 76
Electrodes in the Brain	p. 78
Position Invariance	p. 82
Subliminal Reading	p. 88
How Culture Fashions the Brain	p. 93
The Brains of Chinese Readers	p. 97
Japanese and Its Two Scripts	p. 98
Beyond the Letterbox	p. 100
Sound and Meaning	p. 104
From Spelling to Sound	p. 107
Avenues to Meaning	p. 109
A Cerebral Tidal Bore	p. 113
Brain Limits on Cultural Diversity	p. 116
Reading and Evolution	p. 119
The Reading Ape	p. 121
Of Monkeys and Men	p. 123
Neurons for Objects	p. 125
Grandmother Cells	p. 129
An Alphabet in the Monkey Brain	p. 133
Proto-Letters	p. 137
The Acquisition of Shape	p. 141
The Learning Instinct	p. 142
Neuronal Recycling	p. 144
Birth of a Culture	p. 148
Neurons for Reading	p. 150
Bigram Neurons	p. 153
A Neuronal Word Tree	p. 158
How Many Neurons for Reading?	p. 160
Simulating the Reader's Cortex	p. 163
Cortical Biases That Shape Reading	p. 164
Inventing Reading	p. 171
The Universal Features of Writing Systems	p. 173
A Golden Section for Writing Systems	p. 176
Artificial Signs and Natural Shapes	p. 178
Prehistoric Precursors of Writing	p. 180
From Counting to Writing	p. 182
The Limits of Pictography	p. 184
The Alphabet: A Great Leap Forward	p. 190
Vowels: The Mothers of Reading	p. 192
Learning to Read	p. 195
The Birth of a Future Reader	p. 197
Three Steps for Reading	p. 199
Becoming Aware of Phonemes	p. 200
Graphemes and Phonemes: A Chicken and Egg Problem	p. 202
The Orthographic Stage	p. 204
The Brain of a Young Reader	p. 204
The Illiterate Brain	p. 208
What Does Reading Make Us Lose?	p. 210
When Letters Have Colors	p. 215
From Neuroscience to Education	p. 218
Reading Wars	p. 219
The Myth of Whole-Word Reading	p. 222
The Inefficiency of the Whole-Language Approach	p. 225
A Few Suggestions for Educators	p. 228
The Dyslexic Brain	p. 235
What Is Dyslexia?	p. 237
Phonological Trouble	p. 238
The Biological Unity of Dyslexia	p. 243
A Prime Suspect: The Left Temporal Lobe	p. 246
Neuronal Migrations	p. 249
The Dyslexic Mouse	p. 251
The Genetics of Dyslexia	p. 253
Overcoming Dyslexia	p. 256
Reading and Symmetry	p. 263
When Animals Mix Left and Right	p. 267
Evolution and Symmetry	p. 269
Symmetry Perception and Brain Symmetry	p. 270
Dr. Orton's Modern Followers	p. 274
The Pros and Cons of a Symmetrical Brain	p. 276
Single-Neuron Symmetry	p. 277
Symmetrical Connections	p. 280
Dormant Symmetry	p. 284
Breaking the Mirror	p. 288
Broken Symmetry ... or Hidden Symmetry?	p. 289
Symmetry, Reading, and Neuronal Recycling	p. 293
A Surprising Case of Mirror Dyslexia	p. 294
Toward a Culture of Neurons	p. 301
Resolving the Reading Paradox	p. 303
The Universality of Cultural Forms	p. 304
Neuronal Recycling and Cerebral Modules	p. 306
Toward a List of Cultural Invariants	p. 308
Why Are We the Only Cultural Species?	p. 312
Uniquely Human Plasticity?	p. 314
Reading Other Minds	p. 315
A Global Neuronal Workspace	p. 317
Conclusion The Future of Reading	p. 325
Acknowledgments	p. 329
Notes	p. 331
Bibliography	p. 346
Index	p. 376
Figure Credits	p. 387
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