Memorial Hall Library

Reading in the brain, the new science of how we read, Stanislas Dehaene

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-375) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Reading in the brain

bibliography

567155205

Stanislas Dehaene

the new science of how we read

The act of reading is so easily taken for granted that we forget what an astounding feat it is. How can a few black marks on white paper evoke an entire universe of meanings? It's even more amazing when we consider that we read using a primate brain that evolved to serve an entirely different purpose. In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene explores every aspect of this human invention, from its origins to its neural underpinnings. A world authority on the subject, Dehaene reveals the hidden logic of spelling, describes pioneering research on how we process languages, and takes us into a new appreciation of the brain and its wondrous capacity to adapt.--Publisher's description

The new science of reading : From neurons to education ; Putting neurons into culture ; The mystery of the reading ape ; Biological unity and cultural diversity ; A reader's guide -- How do we read? : The eye: a poor scanner ; The search for invariants ; Amplifying differences ; Every word is a tree ; The silent voice ; The limits of sound ; The hidden logic of our spelling system ; The impossible dream of transparent spelling ; Two routes for reading ; Mental dictionaries ; An assembly of daemons ; Parallel reading ; Active letter decoding ; Conspiracy and competition in reading ; From behavior to brain mechanisms -- The brain's letterbox : Joseph-Jules Déjerine's discovery ; Pure Alexia ; A lesion revealed ; Modern lesion analysis ; Decoding the reading brain ; Reading is universal ; A patchwork of visual preferences ; How fast do we read? ; Electrodes in the brain ; Position invariance ; Subliminal reading ; How culture fashions the brain ; The brains of Chinese readers ; Japanese and its two scripts ; Beyond the letterbox ; Sound and meaning ; From spelling to sound ; Avenues to meaning ; A cerebral tidal bore ; Brain limits on cultural diversity ; Reading and evolution -- The reading ape : Of monkeys and men ; Neurons of objects ; Grandmother cells ; An alphabet in the monkey brain ; Provo-letters ; The acquisition of shape ; The learning instinct ; Neuronal recycling ; Birth of a culture ; Neurons for reading ; Bigram neurons ; A neuronal word tree ; How many neurons for reading? ; Simulating the reader's cortex ; Cortical biases that shape reading -- Inventing reading : The universal features of writing systems ; A golden section for writing systems ; Artificial signs and natural shapes ; Prehistoric precursors of writing ; From counting to writing ; The limits of pictography ; The alphabet: a great leap forward ; Vowels: the mothers of reading -- Learning to read : The birth of a future reader ; Three steps for reading ; Becoming aware of phonemes: a chicken and egg problem ; The orthographic stage ; The brain of a young reader ; What does reading make us lose? ; When letters have colors ; From neuroscience to education ; Reading wars ; The myth of whole-word reading ; The inefficiency of the whole-language approach ; A few suggestions for educators -- The dyslexic brain : What is dyslexia? ; Phonological trouble ; The biological unity of dyslexia ; A prime suspect: the left temporal lobe ; Neuronal migrations ; The dyslexic mouse ; The genetics of dyslexia ; Overcoming dyslexia -- Reading and symmetry : When animals mix left and right ; Evolution and symmetry ; Symmetry perception and brain symmetry ; Dr. Orton's modern followers ; The pros and cons of a symmetrical brain ; Single-neuron symmetry ; Symmetrical connections ; Dormant symmetry ; Breaking the mirror ; Broken symmetry ... or hidden symmetry? ; Symmetry, reading , and neuronal recycling ; A surprising case of mirror dyslexia -- Toward a culture of neurons : Resolving the reading paradox ; The universality of cultural forms ; Neuronal recycling and cerebral modules ; Toward a list of cultural invariants ; Why are we the only cultural species? ; Uniquely human plasticity ; Reading other minds ; A global neuronal workspace -- The future of reading