How Learning to Read Changes the Cortical Networks for Vision and Language

TLDR

Reading and writing are recent inventions, so a preliterate brain must adapt on the fly to process written words rather than relying on ancient visual system pathways. The study examined neural responses to visual stimuli in illiterate adults, adults who learned to read as children, and adults who learned to read as adults. Reading enhanced early‑stage processing of horizontally oriented stimuli and created a word‑specialized area, but this gain came at the expense of a reduced face‑processing region in temporal cortex. Dehaene et al.

Abstract

Reading, Writing, and Face Recognition Reading, not to mention writing and texting, is a relatively recent invention, and hence it is believed that a preliterate brain must adapt on the fly, so to speak, in learning how to process written words, rather than being able to rely upon evolutionarily ancient modifications of the visual system pathways. Dehaene et al. (p. 1359 , published online 11 November) examined the neural response to a range of visual stimuli in three groups: illiterate adults, adults who learned to read as children, and adults who learned to read as adults. Reading induced a greater facility in processing horizontally oriented stimuli at early stages in the visual pathway and was also associated with the appearance of an area specialized for words. This gain of function appeared to occur at a cost—the area in the temporal cortex devoted to face processing shrank.