The new science of reading

Lecture 1 Soaad Abdelhadi

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Points for this evening:

The syllabus http://educ826.weebly.com/ Brainstorming Questions. Chapter 1 : The new science of reading

The Human Brain

The most complex and remarkable organ in the universe.
Our brains are even more complex that a galaxy : "Consider the human brain, if you look at the entire physical cosmos, our brains are a tiny, tiny part of it. But they're the most perfectly organized part. Compared to the complexity of a brain, a galaxy is just an inert lump." Physicist Sir Roger Penrose
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The Human Brain

Includes more than 100,000,000,000 nerve cells

Connecting the neurons equals the distance of the earth to the moon.

The neuron

The neuron

Neurons are responsible for

receiving information processing such information sending information

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy NkAuX29OU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUGuW h2UeMk

Language
The ability to use language is one of the human brain singularities.
What is already known about language and reading acquisition is very little and in most cases is just hypothetical. This is actually a new science, it is so young and fast moving.

Reading
Why we are the only species that can learn this sophisticated skill?
How does synapses and neurons relate to this human culture ? Why does our primate brain read ?

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Reading
what makes us able to decode random strokes quickly and accurately and get meaning from them? How different writing systems such as English, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi get inscribed in our brains cells?

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 Why does our primate brain read although this cultural activity was invented only a few thousand years ago?
**While evolution claims that our brains are the outcome of millions of years of evolution in a world without writing.
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Reading is one of crisis of the evolution theory

Evolution did not have the time to develop specialized reading circuits in the human brain.

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Where does reading start?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfLgz TSL-U0&list=PL9DC7ABC7D1B5F819

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Where does reading start?

The eye
The retina receives photons reflected off the written page. The retina: is not a homogeneous sensor. The fovea: the central part, a is dense in highresolution cells sensitive to incoming light, while the rest of the retina has a coarser resolution.

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Where does reading start?

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Where does reading start?

The fovea, occupies about 15 degrees of the visual field, to keep on a constant motion to scan the print. How do we scan the print? continuously or in small steps? In small steps called saccades / small steps / or fast snapshots.

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Where does reading start?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF IZDZwdf-0
Scientists found that 50 millisecond of presentation are enough for reading to process in a normal pace Very common words like : it / is / the can sometimes be skipped

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Where does reading start?

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 Regardless of the size, only letters close to fixation can be identified.

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McConkie and Rayner

a remarkable discovery to explain the way we read.

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 The physical limits of the eye cannot be overcome, unless one is willing to skip words..

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speed reading course ..Fake

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Visual invariance

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 We can read no matter how letters appear wE cAn reAd no mAtTer hOw LetTeTS apPeAR We can read no matter how letters appear We can read no matter how letters appear

We can read no matter how letters appear

We can read no matter how letters appear
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Visual invariance
Why our visual system efficiently filters out visual differences that are irrelevant to reading (such as R r) ?
On the other side, Our system will immediately access the different in meanings between sight and eight

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Visual invariance: Models

The brain sorts writing into meaningful categories. Sight and Eight Are first filtered through increasingly refined filters that separate them and attach them to distinct entries in a mental lexicon. However, eight and EIGHT are initially encoded by distinct visual detectors and then more abstract letter detectors recognize the similarity between the corresponding letters..

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Basic Definitions
Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound
Grapheme: is the basic unit of written language, corresponding in most cases to the letter. Morpheme: The smallest meaningful linguistic unit ( er, pre-).
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Visual invariance: Models

A hierarchical tree :
Misunderstanding : mis (prefix)+ Understand + ing : mis + under + stand + ing (common suffix) : mis + un + der + st + and + ing

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Visual invariance: Models

A hierarchical tree (continue): The main word is broken down into the elementary components. Scientist that support this hypothesis claim that the brain responses to syllables and morphemes when we read or in other words that our brains tend to group together letters that make up a syllable:

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Visual invariance: Models

A hierarchical tree (continue):

task
Concentrate on the middle letter and decide if it is printed in normal or bold type:

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RIDER
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RIDER
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SUPER
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SUPER
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Please order these words from the easiest to read to the most difficult underestimating because Sing streat abject irresponding flower
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Dual route hypothesis to reading:

Two cognitive routes are involved in reading: (1) Phonological (2) Lexical

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Dual route hypothesis to reading:

Lexical Route: is the process whereby skilled readers can recognize known words by sight alone, through a dictionary lookup procedure.
the semantic lexicon includes words that are irregular and dont follow letter-to sound rules.

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Dual route hypothesis to reading:

hand out from page 39

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Dual route hypothesis to reading:

Phonological route : in which the reader recognizes the letter first then convert it into pronunciation - whereby the reader can sound out a written word.

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Dual route hypothesis to reading:

The dual-route hypothesis of reading has helped researchers explain and understand various facts about normal and abnormal reading.

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Dual route hypothesis to reading

(1)Reading speed:
English language (low transparency) French (medium transparency) Italian (high transparency)

**Transparent writing system contains more consistent grapheme-phoneme mappings.

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Dual route hypothesis to reading:

Reading speed: Low transparency
more irregular orthography conflicting information (phon. & orthog) More time to read

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Dual route hypothesis to reading:

Acquired Surface dyslexia arises after brain damage in lexical route in a previously literate person .
results in pronunciation errors result from impairment of the lexical route. Can Read: words and nonwords that follow letter-sound rules but Cant Read: irregular words. 46

Dual route hypothesis to reading:

Acquired phonological dyslexia damage in the phonological route inability to read nonwords aloud and to identify the sounds of single letters. However, patients can holistically read and words, regardless of length, meaning, or how common they are, as long as they are stored in memory.

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Task: how would different patients read the following words?

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Eye Amportant Emotions Baby Apple Karpet Fale That
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The Daemons model (By Selfridge, 1959, p 42-44)

An assembly of daemons (By Selfridge, 1959, p 42-44) Our mental lexicon work like a huge assembly of daemon.
Each daemon responds to only one word! Daemons compete with one another until the word is fully recognized.
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McClelland & Rumelhart model (1981, p 44-45)

Three hierarchical layers:
(1) Bottom: neurons sensitive to specific line segments fire when presented on the retina (2) Letter-detectors that include these segments are activated. (3) Excitatory and inhibitory connection take part until the right word is detected.
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