Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read [Paperback]

Stanislas Dehaene (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 26, 2010

"Brings together the cognitive, the cultural, and the neurological in an elegant, compelling narrative. A revelatory work."
-Oliver Sacks, M.D.

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 hiw we process languages, and takes us into a new appreciation of the brain and its wondrous capacity to adapt.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The transparent and automatic feat of reading comprehension disguises an intricate biological effort, ably analyzed in this fascinating study. Drawing on scads of brain-imaging studies, case histories of stroke victims and ingenious cognitive psychology experiments, cognitive neuroscientist Dehaene (The Number Sense) diagrams the neural machinery that translates marks on paper into language, sound and meaning. It's a complex and surprising circuitry, both specific, in that it is housed in parts of the cortex that perform specific processing tasks, and puzzlingly abstract. (The brain, Dehaene hypothesizes, registers words mainly as collections of pairs of letters.) The author proposes reading as an example of neuronal recycling—the recruitment of previously evolved neural circuits to accomplish cultural innovations—and uses this idea to explore how ancient scribes shaped writing systems around the brain's potential and limitations. (He likewise attacks modern whole language reading pedagogy as an unnatural imposition on a brain attuned to learning by phonics.) This lively, lucid treatise proves once again that Dehaene is one of our most gifted expositors of science; he makes the workings of the mind less mysterious, but no less miraculous. Illus. (Nov. 16)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

French scientist Stanislas Dehaene is a world authority on the cognitive neuroscience of language and number processing in the human brain. He is the director of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit in Saclay, France, a professor of experimental cognitive psychology at the Collège de France, a member of the French Academy of Sciences and of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He is the author of several books, including The Number Sense. In 2008 he was profiled in The New Yorker for his work in numerical cognition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (October 26, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143118056
• ISBN-13: 978-0143118053
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Science & Math > Science for Kids
  • #61 in Books > Education & Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Reading Skills
  • #95 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Neuropsychology

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 87 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. December 9, 2009

By James T. Ranney

Format:Hardcover

An astonishing work, explaining convincingly how mankind acquired (only in the last 5,000 years) a skill we all take for granted: reading. The brief explanation, as I (a non-scientist) understand it? Reading takes quite a lot of brain computer firepower (because of the multiple processing required), such that our eventually huge frontal lobes were necessary. The portions of our brain used initially for visual recognition lead to the wiring of our brains to recognize certain key shapes, shapes that eventually become the key "strokes" used in writing (by all cultures) such that they are in effect structured into our brain's learning algorithm, creating specific neuronal circuits and structures, previously used as visual pathways. It's an amazing story, well told by one well placed to present the many brain science studies (many of which he conducted) which fully explicate the story. Also numerous "side-stories" worth hearing: e.g., re the origins of our alphabet, along with occasional hints of possible future evolution of the human brain. An A+ book.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Research and Enthralling Style! March 1, 2010

By Nathan Mccune

Format:Hardcover

Although one of the main topics covered in this book is dyslexia and how it may be a culturally defined disorder as well as a neurological disorder, the book covers a wide range of data. Dehaene is very thorough, offering extensive fMRI maps of up to date research on modules of the brain pertaining to reading. The book may be hard to wade through for those of us unfamiliar with extensive neurological terminology, but Dehaene works hard to ensure that his readers understand the issues. A very worthwhile read for any linguist, cognitive scientist, or anyone simply interested in the evolution of reading in our ambitious pleistocene minds.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The brain is an amazing place March 18, 2010

By Laurie A. Brown VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Author Dehaene, who has some very impressive credentials, has made an exhaustive exploration of how the human brain reads. What he has concluded is that we `recycle' parts of the brain that were evolved to do other things. Humans have been evolving for several million years, but only reading for a few thousand- a new structure just for reading couldn't have been created in that time. And reading arose in several geographical areas around the same time- the chances of a special mutation for reading happening in all those places is pretty slim.

Hundreds of experiments, from EEGs, fMRIs, split brain surgeries, tests on people who have had strokes or other brain damage, have found how reading works. From how the eye functions, to the recognition of letters on paper, to turning them mentally into sound, and putting those sounds together into words, Dehaene has traced the path. He gives his opinions on what seem to be the best way to teach reading, but also calls for large experiments in teaching reading to resolve, once and for all, what is the best, most efficient way to teach all- not just average children but adult illiterates and people with dyslexia.

The book is very interesting, but it can be slow going. He gives the conditions and results of test after test, and tells us what the information gained tells us about reading. What the reader learns about their brain makes it worth sticking with the book.