READING and the

BRAIN
The Diversity of Writing Systems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet
Reading involves a set of cognitive processes. The basic one is
word recognition which involves mapping from a word form
(orthography,) to its sound pattern (phonology, ).

Therefore, character and word in
Chinese reading are two basic,
functional units for processing.
 orthography
grapheme
phoneme
grapheme-to-phoneme conversion/transformation
opaque vs. transparent GPC

For example: YACHT, PINE, GAVE, BRANE,

// //

mother

semantic
(consistent)
phonological
radical radical
read

semantic
(inconsistent)
phonological
radical radical

Will properties of the components (radicals) of a character have

systematic, psychological influence to its processing ?

Neurological bases for visual language processing -
reading
There were 2 routes whereby visually presented words are
linked to meaning.

1. Phonological route to reading see the word, sound it out

understand the meaning (grapheme-to-phoneme)

2. Direct route printed words are directly linked to meaning

(useful to reading irregular words, such as yacht or
colonel or pint)
 Written word
Psychological
Models of Reading orthographic analysis

orthographic
Attention input lexicon
Working memory
Semantic memory
COGNITIVE subword level orthographic

direct
SYSTEM route
to phonological conversion

phonological
phonological route
output lexicon

response print frequency

buffer regularity/consistency
homophone density
Speaking
 Written word
orthographic analysis

Reading Two Routes orthographic

input lexicon

Neuropsychological Evidence subword level orthographic

direct route
COGNITIVE
to phonological conversion
SYSTEM

phonological
Damage to direct route output lexicon phonological route

Surface alexia
response
buffer
Speaking
Reading by sound
Can not recognize words but can understand them by using grapheme-to-
phoneme relations
Words can be understood if they are sounded out
Regular words are read normally (home or dome)
Irregular words are not read properly: yacht, debt, ache or quay.
Patients read lace as lake, come as comb
These patients can pronounce regular non-words (e.g., glimay)
Overgeneralization of rules
Does every language have surface dyslexia?
 Written word
orthographic analysis

Reading Two Routes orthographic

input lexicon

Neuropsychological Evidence subword level orthographic

direct route
COGNITIVE
to phonological conversion
SYSTEM

Damage to phonological route

phonological
output lexicon phonological route

response
Phonological alexia buffer
Speaking

Patients do not have problem reading previously learned words

(regular or irregular) as they are using the direct route

Patients extract the meaning directly from the visual form of the word

They have problems reading new words both regular or irregular

Intact direct route is not enough because they do not have the
connection between the visual form of the word and meaning
 Reading Two Routes
Neuropsychological Evidence

Deep alexia (related to phonological alexia)

Key feature are semantic errors

Patients read semantically related words in place of the word they
are trying to read
merry as Christmas
cow as horse
food store as grocery store
Function words are very difficult for these patients
Concrete words better than abstract words
Unable to read non-words
A visual word form area (VWFA)
a link between visual word form perception
and a functional specialization Percentage change of
BOLD signal for

Spatial localization: Left-FG

Temporal localization: 150-200 McCandliss et al. (2003)
ms (ERP,MEG)

VWFA
The visual word form area (VWFA)

A reproducible site of activation during

reading in all cultures (e.g. Bolger, Perfetti & Schneider, 2005)
Always located at the same coordinates in the
left lateral occipito-temporal sulcus
Whose lesion can cause pure alexia, an
acquired selective disability in reading (e.g. Djerine,
1892; Gaillard et al., 2006)

Which activates more to known scripts than

to other categories of visual stimulis (e.g. Baker et al.,
2007)

A high-level visual area, invariant for

location and case in word identification (e.g.
Dehaene et al., 2001; Cohen et al., 2002)

An automated system, capable of activating

even to subliminal stimuli (e.g. Dehaene et al., 2001, 2004)
Organized as a posterior-to-anterior
hierarchy sensitive to increasingly frequent and
larger fragments of words: letters, bigrams, etc
(e.g. Binder et al., 2006; Vinckier et al., 2007)
 The neuronal recycling hypothesis
Hypotheses :
Human brain organization is subject to strong anatomical and connectional
constraints inherited from evolution. Organized neural maps are present early on in
infancy and bias subsequent learning.
New cultural acquisitions are only possibly inasmuch as they fit within this pre-existing
architecture.
Each cultural object must find its neuronal niche -- a set of circuits that are sufficiently
close to the required function and sufficiently plastic to be partially recycled.
As cortical territories dedicated to evolutionarily older functions are invaded by novel
cultural objects, their prior organization is never entirely erased. Thus, prior neural
constraints exert a powerful influence on cultural acquisition and adult organization.

Predictions:
Numerous cross-cultural invariants should be identified, both at the cerebral level and
in the structure of cultural systems.
The speed and ease of cultural acquisition in children should vary with the complexity
of the required cortical remapping.
There might be losses, not just gains, associated with education.
 Putative origins of the VWFA:
Recycling of a subpart of the ventral visual pathway

Macaque
Human brain
monkey brain
After normalization for size

Visual recognition Visual recognition

of objects, faces; of objects and faces
and written words
 Symmetry generalization:
The Pandas thumb of cultural recycling?

We have evolved a symmetry mechanism that helps to recognize

faces and objects regardless of their orientation.

Infero-temporal neurons spontaneously generalize to mirror images.

-144 -108 -72 -36 0 +36 +72 +108 +144 +180

Preferred view Mirror-image generalization

Logothetis, 1995
This symmetry generalization may have to be un-learned when we learn to
read.
 Mirror-image confusion
In the inferotemporal cortex

LogothesisAnnu Rev Neurosci 1996

 Mirror-image confusion

Mirror-image letter pairs

b vs. d vs.

Mirror confusion arises from the intrinsic property of our visual

nervous system

But we need to distinguish mirror images during normal reading

developmentmirror-image suppression

Functional reorganization in our perceptual system? But no such

mirror suppression may occur in illiterate people.
Mirror writing in children
The reinvention of boustrophedon

(with thanks to Manuela Piazza and to Marc Smith)

 A trace of neuronal recycling?
A mirror stage in learning to read

100

normal
mirror

% children
able to write 50
their name

0
<5 y 5-6 y 6-7 y 7-8 y >8y Childrens age
(Data from Cornell, 1985)