An update on current research from one of my favourite scientists (re: Consciousness, Literacy), Stanislas Dehaene (most recently he authored a book on this same subject of cortical recycling and suchlike, so I imagine this is intended to follow that)...
http://chinese.eurekalert.org/en/pub_rel...110810.php
"Learning to read—even in adulthood—is a sufficiently important experience for the brain that it reallocates some of its resources, so that other functions like face recognition have to give up some of their turf, new research suggests... "
How Learning to Read Changes the Cortical Networks for Vision and Language
Abstract: Does literacy improve brain function? Does it also entail losses? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we measured brain responses to spoken and written language, visual faces, houses, tools, and checkers in adults of variable literacy (10 were illiterate, 22 became literate as adults, and 31 became literate in childhood). As literacy enhanced the left fusiform activation evoked by writing, it induced a small competition with faces at this location but also broadly enhanced visual responses in fusiform and occipital cortex, extending to area V1. Literacy also enhanced phonological activation to speech in the planum temporale and afforded a top-down activation of orthography from spoken inputs. Most changes occurred even when literacy was acquired in adulthood, emphasizing that both childhood and adult education can profoundly refine cortical organization.
http://chinese.eurekalert.org/en/pub_rel...110810.php
"Learning to read—even in adulthood—is a sufficiently important experience for the brain that it reallocates some of its resources, so that other functions like face recognition have to give up some of their turf, new research suggests... "
How Learning to Read Changes the Cortical Networks for Vision and Language
Abstract: Does literacy improve brain function? Does it also entail losses? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we measured brain responses to spoken and written language, visual faces, houses, tools, and checkers in adults of variable literacy (10 were illiterate, 22 became literate as adults, and 31 became literate in childhood). As literacy enhanced the left fusiform activation evoked by writing, it induced a small competition with faces at this location but also broadly enhanced visual responses in fusiform and occipital cortex, extending to area V1. Literacy also enhanced phonological activation to speech in the planum temporale and afforded a top-down activation of orthography from spoken inputs. Most changes occurred even when literacy was acquired in adulthood, emphasizing that both childhood and adult education can profoundly refine cortical organization.
Edited: 2010-11-13, 2:24 am
