Cover of Reading in the Brain

Reading in the Brain

by Stanislas Dehaene · first published 2009

17mentions
2recommended by
5HN commenters
2010–2024first – last mentioned

40% recommend60% neutral

A renowned cognitive neuroscientist's fascinating and highly informative account of how the brain acquires readingHow can a few black marks on a white page evoke an entire universe of sounds and meanings? In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene provides an accessible account of the brain circuitry of reading and explores what he calls the "reading paradox": Our cortex is the product of millions of years of evolution in a world without writing, so how did it adapt to recognize words? Reading in the Brain describes pioneering research on how we process language, revealing the hidden lo

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What Hacker News says

  • tokenadult · Sep 23, 2014 · Recommends

    …Fantasy[1] or Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems[2] by the late John DeFrancis or the book Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning[3] by J. Marshall Unger. The book Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention[4] by Stanislas Dehaene is a very good book about reading in general, and has a good cross-cultural perspective. I'll give an example here of how Chinese…

    on “An Unusual Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist” ↗
  • tokenadult · Sep 19, 2012 · Recommends

    …are for people with reading difficulties, who after all are still going to be in a world full of standard fonts. Much of the best research on dyslexia is gathered into the very interesting recent book Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read http://readinginthebrain.pagesperso-orange.fr/intro.htm http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-The-Science-Read/dp/0143... by Stanislas Dehaene. There are definitely educational…

    on “Open Dyslexic - Dyslexia Fonts” ↗
  • tokenadult · Feb 25, 2014 · Recommends

    That's interesting. A technology like this was predicted, on theoretical grounds from reading research, in the book Reading in the Brain[1] by Stanislas Dehaene (which I highly recommend as a very good read). For years 500 words per minute (approximately one printed page per minute) has been my baseline speed for most of the material…

    on “Spritz – read 500 words per minute without any training” ↗
  • tokenadult · Nov 2, 2014 · Recommends

    …Fantasy[1] or Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems[2] by the late John DeFrancis or the book Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning[3] by J. Marshall Unger. The book Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention[4] by Stanislas Dehaene is a very good book about reading in general, and has a good cross-cultural perspective. Many other examples of words, phrases,…

    on “Cantonese Proverbs in One Picture” ↗
  • tokenadult · Aug 28, 2014 · Recommends

    …the relevant populations are still grossly inadequate for backing up conclusions like that. P.S. Reliable information about the neurological underpinnings of reading ability can be found in the book Reading in the Brain,[4] by a scientist who has done many neuro-imaging studies of reading ability, a very readable and interesting book. [1] http://assessingpsyche.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/strawman-spe... [2] http://www.psych.umn.edu/research/areas/pib/…

    on “How Modular Is Intelligence?” ↗
  • tokenadult · Sep 5, 2010 · Recommends

    Needs a lot more replication before I'll believe it. See Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution-Invent... for a good recent, research-based account of how reading works.

    on “Reading Arabic 'hard for brain'” ↗
  • tokenadult · Oct 19, 2011 · Recommends

    …interesting article, with references to research I hadn't heard about before. One of my favorite books on reading, which deserves to be read slowly enough to comprehend everything the author is saying, is Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene. http://readinginthebrain.pagesperso-orange.fr/intro.htm What any Hacker News participant can do to get a check on appropriate reading speed for one kind of book or article or another…

    on “Skimming vs. Reading” ↗
  • gnicholas · Jan 31, 2020 · Recommends

    Highly recommend Dehaene's book Reading In The Brain: https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-New-Science-Read/dp/014...

    on “How we pay attention changes the shape of our brains” ↗
  • tokenadult · Jun 19, 2015 · Recommends

    …Fantasy[1] or Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems[2] by the late John DeFrancis or the book Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning[3] by J. Marshall Unger. The book Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention[4] by Stanislas Dehaene is a very good book about reading in general, and has a good cross-cultural perspective. I'll give an example here of how Chinese…

    on “A proportional visualization of the world's most popular languages” ↗
  • tokenadult · Jul 16, 2015 · Recommends

    …Fantasy[2] or Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems[3] by the late John DeFrancis or the book Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning[4] by J. Marshall Unger. The book Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention[5] by Stanislas Dehaene is a very good book about reading in general, and has a good cross-cultural perspective. I'll give an example here of how Chinese…

    on “Why isn't 'American' a Language?” ↗
  • tokenadult · Sep 28, 2015 · Recommends

    …Fantasy[2] or Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems[3] by the late John DeFrancis or the book Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning[4] by J. Marshall Unger. The book Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention[5] by Stanislas Dehaene is a very good book about reading in general, and has a good cross-cultural perspective. I'll give an example here of how Chinese…

    on “The Future of Language” ↗
  • tokenadult · Jul 12, 2011 · Recommends

    The statement in the video "dyslexics rotate the letters" is largely untrue. For some really cool details on reading research, see Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-New-Science-Read/dp/B004... by a neuroscientist who has studied these issues for years and who is familiar with the difference that…

    on “Dyslexie: A typeface for dyslexics” ↗
  • tokenadult · Feb 25, 2013 · Mentions

    …throat muscle movements, always occurs in reading, but I know from the books Visible Speech by John DeFrancis (a scholar of Chinese) http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Speech-Asian-Interactions-Comp... and Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention by Stanislas Dehaene (a neuroscientist who does brain imaging studies) http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution-Invent... and from my own…

    on “Is speed reading really possible? ” ↗
  • RobertoG · Apr 9, 2021 · Mentions

    …space that is used in people that can't read for some detailed visual processing (1). Maybe you could add some extra processing in the extra arm, so it's more "cheap" to use. (1) - I learnt that in "Reading in the brain" by Stanislas Dehaene.

    on “Monkey MindPong” ↗
  • tokenadult · Jan 2, 2010 · Mentions

    Quoted author Maryanne Wolf seems to be saying something that is at least partly contrary to what is said in the new book Reading in the Brain http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution-Invent... by Stanislas Dehaene. He is very up to date on the best research on reading acquisition in children and adult reading performance in countries…

    on “Does the brain like ebooks?” ↗

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