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Stanislas Dehaene, reading. The greatest invention of mankind, and what happened here in our heads, Munich 2010 (2009)

1. description of the subject and the action subject in brain research
2. for interdisciplinary brain research
3. to neuro-physiological functions of the brain, consciousness and behavior
4. to neuro-physiological functions of the brain: competition versus reciprocity
5. to neuro-physiological functions of the brain: Gestalt perception
6. to neurophysiological function of the brain: Proto letters
7. to neurophysiological function of the Brain: school
   

In this post would still go once in detail on Dehaene's thesis that the limited plasticity of the brain also affects limiting effect on the individual learning and cultural freedom of man. (See Dehaene, 2010, p. 16, 164f., 197u.ö.) In several places Dehaene expressed the suspicion that the teaching of reading in a loss of other skills associated, because this new ability busy cultural circuits which hitherto for other functions had been planned: "The competition between this new cultural functions and the earlier evolution of the inherited functions within our brain has perhaps led to lost that because of the increasing literacy skills were some of our culture - such as the visual recognition of certain categories of goods' (. Dehaene, 2010 S.195f, 247 and elsewhere)

Apart from the fact that the respective circuits in the left posterior temporal area specialized for the general perception of objects, and learning to read and a diversion of specialization is made to the recognition of letters and words, but concrete Dehaene is only one place, what could it be for a loss. For that to recognize the recognition of objects by the new capability, letters and words affected would, one can not really say. Dehaene proposed as candidates for such a loss in the competition before the evolution due to limited amount of available circuits, the track read: "All anthropologists who have spent some time with hunters and gatherers in the Amazon, New Guinea or in the African bush and return with a feeling of inferiority back. Your hosts, they say, it would mean so much to read the natural world. Particularly virtuosic they master it, to interpret animal tracks. "(Dehaene 2010, p. 241)

The new cultural ability to read text, so should the older cultural ability, the nature of To read to compete and eventually displace them from the circuits that they had been used. To prove this hypothesis empirically, one would Dehaene not only compare the brain function of track-read illiterate in the text read equally well trained alphabets, but shall also, tracker 'and' text reader 'in their competing ability, the possibilities of the simultaneous reading of traces and texts to elicit. Thus, the comparative study but would really give some indication, that should not take place in a laboratory study, but it would be a field study. There would, however, for the tracker give an equivalent cultural environment for the texts read, and the text reader it would give an equivalent cultural environment for the Tracking. It would have to be a culture, check out the tracks and reading texts will be considered equally valuable, and to judge really compete if and how to read signs and texts read by a limited repertoire of neuro-physiological functionality!

But first, there is not such a culture, so that such experiments are not feasible. Yet one can second the lack of such a culture as evidence values for the proposition that the limited plasticity of the brain also available standing cultural space is limited. One can only conclude from this that have cultures that prefer the text read, there is little interest in tracking, and that cultures that prefer the tracking, only a slight interest have read on or just barely opportunities for texts. So if there would be a cultural interest in the simultaneous use of these skills, so first there is nothing that read traces and reading texts could complement each other as well as playing violin, embroider and to type. (See Dehaene, 2010, p. 241)

The following article argues Dehaene then not so much in terms of a competition between tracks and Read words, but more in the direction of a precursor function of the track reading text for later reading, which is something else entirely. Then would the Tracking the ability to read words, only paved the way (see Dehaene, 2010, p.242), not to necessarily be in competition (see Dehaene, 2010 p.243). In the end, so not much of Dehaene's thesis of a cultural skills competition for a limited amount of available functional circuits.

addition, there are a variety of counter-arguments and counter-examples, Dehaene own lists and much more different from a mutual support of cultural skills talk than predatory. How to Hold Dehaene, first, that the "scope of our learning process" is not defined "absolute": "The large increase of synapses as well as the branching of axons and dendrites at the beginning of the development a margin of learning, its contours are not known. "(Dehaene, 2010, p.240) - Second, seem to" associative 'neurons of the cerebral cortex in präfontalen area and in the parietal and temporal region ... to belong to several groups sometimes very different. "(Ibid.) The specialization of certain neurons and circuits is thus by the ability of other neurons, to mediate between different circuits added.

Third, "learning can raise the precision of the neural code - this is a redundant coding to meet in most neurons of the same rough distinctions, to a differentiated representation of the environment of where each neuron precisely on each separate set of stimuli responding. ... With the learning process grows on the cortical map the surface of the left hand (eg, pianists and violinists - DR). Stimulated card can then spread to adjacent areas of the cortex, which normally devoted to the representation of arm and face are. "(Dehaene 2010, S.240f.) This is not about competition from the speech, but rather an additional stimulus" adjacent areas ", which may well have a positive influence on the overall activity of these areas," said occupation modified the accuracy, with which we carry out other parts of the body? This is possible, but you can imagine as well that there is a positive transfer is: What the neurons for the function A (violin play - DR) could have learned to write eventually be useful for the function B (embroidery or machine - DZ prove). "(Dehaene 21010, p. 241)

Further evidence that learning to read not just an isolated, potentially with others in the displacement of competing cultural ability, but that goes along with it a whole set of other mental skills, is that "the hours that you spends so tiny to identify differences between the letters, also increase the analytical capabilities of our visual cortex can. When compared to illiterate is reflected in the fact that the perception of geometric shapes with the acquisition of reading is better () "(Dehaene 2010, p. 241)

Ultimately Dehaene is not around it -. Even if this conclusion is not explicit in his -, to put his own "very speculative" theory (see Dehaene, 2010, p.240) even the death blow: "The brain is a plastic and constantly under renovation located institution, set in the experience as much as Gene ... the child's brain contains millions of redundant circuits that can compensate each other mutually. ... Each new learning process modifies the expression of our genes, turning our neural circuitry. "(S.291f.) - There remains then not much left of the allegedly by the neuro-physiological functions related cultural limitations of our" invention capability "(see Dehaene, 2010 S .352).