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And what that meant at the individual brain level was the brain used its existing capabilities - for example, the ability to recognize objects - and created new neural pathways specific to the task of reading. And reading did not destroy humanity's oral tradition, as Socrates feared. Greek learning and sophistication meant memorizing Homer and the poets, and after years of such commitment and dedication Greek citizens became profoundly powerful orators. Then they realized that these symbols could be in effect systemized and taught to future generations. In altering its structure the brain also alters its DNA, permitting these changes to be passed onto future generations.
At a social level humans first realized the utility of using abstract symbols to represent objects. From the title Professor Wolf lets us know this is not meant to be solely about neuroscience. "Neuroplasticity" refers to the ability of the brain to grow, repair itself, and to reconstitute its structure. English readers link sound to words, and Chinese readers do not.
Socrates believed that reading would destroy such a tradition of learning and refinement.It's strange that Professor Wolf keeps on harking back to Socrates' warnings, because we know he was wrong. And perhaps one hundred years from now we may have a vast majority of humanity thinking visually, but the reading and oral traditions will still live in a dedicated minority. And some groups realized that these symbols could represent sounds (such as in English), thereby speeding the learning of the language. Thus scans of an English reading brain turn out to possess a different structure than a Chinese reading brain. Her constant shifting from lauding the merits of reading to revealing the neuroscience of reading is annoying and distracting, and offers little to the reader.
In her "The Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain," the Tufts University professor Maryanne Wolf explains with detail and rigor how neuroplasticity permitted the brain to read. As Professor Wolf points out, reading required a new brain structure, and a new brain structure meant new thoughts, which unleashed an outpouring of creativity. And so it stands to reason that the digital age and the Internet would require a new brain structure to absorb the Internet's distinctive way of distributing information - a new structure that would necessitate the blurring and blending of our visual and verbal neural pathways, which will spark new thoughts and ideas. Today in Jerusalem synagogues, Iranian mosques, and the Vatican you have rabbis, imams, and priests who have committed decades of their lives to memorizing and reciting religious texts. Of course, a brain that has learned to read over generations can also learn to lose that ability - especially in the digital Internet age where visuals and hyperlinks are replacing paragraph and grammar. Her explanation of the different brain structures involved in reading fails to inform, and seems often at times an arbitrary reminder of her academic authority. That is how reading came about.
Professor Wolf also likes to drown her text with quotations from authors to demonstrate how reading can in effect connect cultures, societies, and time. The Japanese language has elements of both Chinese and English, and a Japanese reading brain ought to combine the structures of the Chinese and English reading brains - and that's exactly what brain scans show. That's what frightens Professor Wolf, who refers to the example of Socrates who lamented the proliferation of reading and writing. For her Proust represents the story and the beauty of reading, and the squid represents the science and the mechanics of reading. And that may be cute but it's also annoying and distracting.Nevertheless overall this book is a good, useful read - although it's a book you should read after reading "The Accidental Mind" and "The Brain that Changes Itself."
I was looking forward to reading this book but was ultimately rather disappointed with it. It's not especially readable for a popularizing volume, it's not especially insightful as an original work, and I thought it was a bit of a mishmash. For me the best part was the bibliography, where i found a number of very interesting citations.
You get some history of languages, Socrates's concerns about the advent of written language, reading impairments, research into reading, and more. I was expecting her to mention at that point the potential benefits of teaching our children a well-designed language. 2. But really, humans have been reading for such a brief period compared to the time during which human intelligence has evolved -- it seems silly to be talking about this. The author makes it clear how the irregularities in a language like English create much more work for our brains, and as a result increase the number of people who never succeed in attaining reading proficiency -- their brains just can't do all that work fast enough.
To consider the pros and cons of dyslexia from an evolutionary point of view, you'd need to think about how it would have affected the lives of our ancestors hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years ago. No doubt this is due in part to good editing technology, but there is talent involved in reading such a book, and Kirsten has it in spades.That said, I think most of us would be better off ordering the book rather than the CDs. Some of the text is just too involved to absorb properly in a linear reading (at least it was for me). Maybe, but I can't really get behind this.
The author repeatedly expresses her concern that the immediacy with which information is available on the Internet may have negative consequences on our children's intellectual development. If you are thinking of buying this book, be aware that it is at times more demanding that what you might expect given that it is a book written for the masses.Assuming you have some interest in the subject, the book talks about what has to happen in a child's brain from many different angles, and it's pretty interesting. The recording quality is very high, and her voice is clear, smooth, and just lively enough to make the text interesting without seeming overdone. Parts of it are fairly technical, involving fairly detailed descriptions of what might be going on in the brain, and the experiments used to figure that out. She called to our attention the remarkable contributions to our culture made by Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, and others who are thought to have been dyslexic, suggesting that while dyslexics are at a serious disadvantage when learning to read, there may be compensatory benefits that have caused those genes to survive. If anything I'd guess that their intellectual development will be enhanced, in part because it is much easier for them to publish their own thoughts than it was for us, and because that expression involves a mixture of media.
If you were to buy a book like this for the Kindle and ask that parts of it be read to you, it would be read with a mechanical voice. It seemed like an obvious implication of the research she was discussing, but she made no mention of it. Other reviews say quite clearly what this book is about; I'll try to add to that.Parts of this book are fairly easy, and would be interesting to anyone with an interest in the brain and/or linguistics. It isn't clear to me either that dyslexia would have been a significant disability, or that the intellectual capacity to ponder something as complex as the nature of space-time would have been a significant benefit, to the reproductive success of a hunter-gatherer hominid.However, that's just quibbling -- overall I enjoyed the book, and learned a lot from it.By the way, the reader, Kirsten Potter, did a fantastic job. Several times while listening to her read a difficult passage it struck me how her spot-on intonation and modulations in reading rate were were helping me to get through the book.
And she never seemed to choke on a word.
3.
Why couldn't the Kindle download the audiobook and play that.
I definitely came away with a greater appreciation of the fact that we can do this at all.I have a few quibbles: 1.
That is, buying the book on Kindle could entitle you to read it yourself and/or to listen to somebody like Kirsten read it.
Beyond the obvious potential advantages of being able to communicate with anyone in the world and needing to invest *far* less effort in such a language than, say, English or Chinese, apparently people whose brains can't process text sufficiently rapidly to read English would have a much easier time with a well-designed language.
She made some arguments about dyslexia from an evolutionary standpoint, remarking that since dyslexia genes have survived they must have some adaptive value.
And there are apparently some diagrams in the book that I would have liked to have seen and had time to mull over while reading the related passages.All in all, an interesting, albeit at times highly technical, exploration of what a miracle it is that you can understand another person's thoughts through reading.--By the way.
In my opinion, that would make the Kindle much more attractive.
Dr. Dr. Why is it so difficult for some. Being an avid reader, I started this book with great anticipation: How does my brain do this reading thing. However, several times it struck me as odd to be listening to a book about reading. The book starts off promisingly enough for the layperson, but bogs down somewhere in the middle with scientific jargon, study details, and long complex sentences.
She moves onward to the subject of dyslexia, and finishes with her concerns that the 'sound bite' qualities of the internet might be ruining the future of reading.
Wolf started with a fascinating history of reading and writing.
But at times Proust and the Squid was a real struggle to get through.
How is reading other languages different.
Wolf is obviously passionate about the subject and passes on some fascinating insights and I'm more amazed than ever at the fact that we can read and write at all.
She compared the development of reading over history to the development of reading in an individual.
Then she went more into the science of how all the different parts of the brain involved work together.
I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the book, I just wish it was slightly more accessible to the general public.Notes about the audio book: This book is well and expressively read, and it's probably a great way for those affected by dyslexia to experience the book.
Listening to the audio version probably knocked a star off of my review, mostly because I think I would have been able to follow the more complex information in the book better by reading rather than listening.
. The only reason I gave this book four stars instead of five is because it is written for a certain audience and not so much for a general audience. Proust and the Squid is subtitled: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain and this is accurate.
The facts stated about how our brain learns to read, what our eyes have to do with it and even the language we are learning to read, are fascinating. Again, fascinating. But, I found this scholarly book full of material interesting enough to keep me listening further.
There is science, history and story. It also explains why some have difficulty learning to read.This isn't something the casual reader would pick up to read and enjoy - it is challenging, but certainly worth the effort. If you are someone involved in literacy, learning or someone who just loves to absorb facts, this book is for you.
The author, Maryanne Wolf certainly knows her subject. If you enjoy learning, however, you'll find something in this book that will catch your fancy.
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