16 ms·

Learning to Read in Your 30s Profoundly Transforms the Brain

367 points by dnetesn 8y ago

docbrown 8y ago
>”These deep structures in the thalamus and brainstem help our visual cortex to filter important information from the flood of visual input even before we consciously perceive it.” Interestingly, it seems that the more the signal timings between the two brain regions are aligned, the better the reading capabilities. “We, therefore, believe that these brain systems increasingly fine-tune their communication as learners become more and more proficient in reading,” the neuroscientist explains further. “This could explain why experienced readers navigate more efficiently through a text.” I read the headline and instantly wondered if the same result occurs as we age and continue to fine tune our reading skills. The above passage seems to confirm the age old saying of reading keeping the mind active. One thing I am wondering though is if there is a certain types of literature that the brains reacts in a more positive or less than observation way. For example, does our brain engage more when we’re reading a technical literature review moreso than if it was a novel? Or vice versa. Is this why professionals—lawyers are the main ones i can think of—who comb through hundreds of dense reading weekly get viewed as achieving such a masters ability in reading?
- galois198 8y ago
  > One thing I am wondering though is if there is a certain types of literature that the brains reacts in a more positive or less than observation way. For example, does our brain engage more when we’re reading a technical literature review moreso than if it was a novel? I've often wondered this also. It would be interesting to quantitatively determine the effects of reading fiction versus non-fiction material on the mind.
  - irishloop 8y ago
    Intuitively it would make sense to me that they both provide advantages to the mind. Certainly, being able to parse dense technical literature is impressive, but the ability to use the imagination and think creatively would probably use different parts of the mind, and I'd think the "best" minds could do both. Wasn't it said that Einstein kind of came up with the whole idea about relativity based on the imagined idea of "riding" a beam of light or something like that?
    - otras 8y ago
      I highly recommend Richard Feynman's talk [0] on imagining physics from the BBC series "Fun to Imagine": "In the case of science, I think that one of the things that make it difficult is that it takes a lot of imagination. It's very hard to imagine all the crazy things that things really are like." [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zZbX_9ru9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zZbX_9ru9U
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    I believe any current studies focused mostly on brain engagements on screen vs book. We know that there are studies that indicate that reading fiction engages the brain in such a way that it is speculated a given reader literally experiences the fiction as if it were real life.
- stevenjohns 8y ago
  Anecdotally, I relearned[0] to read and write in Arabic in 2016. When I started I could just recognize some letters off-hand and when I stopped I had the reading ability of a six year old[1]. I excelled quite rapidly and it's coincidentally tied to a time of intense emotional and intellectual development for me. Even my skills in programming have doubled or tripled during that time. To the point where the then-CTO of the company picked it and brought it up. I went out and doubled my salary and job responsibilities a year later. I'm not sure if it's related to the reading, or if the reading was a side-effect of it, but I thought I'd share. [0] I attended a weekly class for several months when I was 8 but we didn't get through half of a first grade book. [1] Although I can make out the letters and can write pretty good too, it takes me longer than usual and I usually can't make sense of 60% of what I'm reading because written Arabic is in the very formal MSA and I'm only familiar with a regional dialect. A comparison to this would be someone who's only familiar with NY-borough slang trying to make sense of Shakespeare.
  - groth 8y ago
    how did you re-learn to read? I am ethnically chinese and have long been meaning to (re?)-acquire the mother tongue.
    - stevenjohns 8y ago
      I imagine Chinese would be a lot harder. With Arabic, it's a total of 28 letters with more or less 3 different wants of writing them, giving a total of 84 possible glyphs. On top of this there are various accents that can be placed on every letter. In essence, it's not that much more complicated than some sort of Latin alphabet (i.e Spanish or Italian). The process I used was to learn a new letter everyday (with its three combinations) then found a local Lebanese church that had Arabic classes and joined up. I was a lot better than everyone else, because I went in with prior knowledge, so I was always at least several lessons ahead which allowed me to utilise my time with the teacher to ask questions on specific things rather than just trying to keep up with the core coursework.
- tarunkotia 8y ago
  As long as you make new neural connections your brain is going to grow[0]. An anecdotal fact which I heard many years ago was that adding a new perspective to look at something is like increasing your IQ by 10-20 points. Simply reading a lot of text within your comfort zone is not going to increase your mental capacity. [0]https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung
  - Wistar 8y ago
    I wonder if learning to play music later in life has similar effects. I have read that music, if learned young in life — by age 12 or so, actually produces physical changes in the brain.
    - criddell 8y ago
      That's the first thing I wondered as well since I'm currently trying (and mostly failing) to learn how to play my guitar. I also wonder what the limits to learning are. At some point, if I learn something new, does pushing that knowledge into my long-term store replace or weaken an existing memory?
      - Baeocystin 8y ago
        I think of it as a time-decay function. There are only so many attentive, focused hours one can give during a day, and a memory only lasts so long before it decays from disuse. Some amount of area under this curve represents what a person can functionally retain. It isn't a fixed amount, as more connections between subjects tends to reinforce both, but there is a limit.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    1) Neurogenesis halts in your early 20s. After that, no new neurons for you, sorry. Although the connections may change. 2) "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points" is actually one of Alan Kay's famous quips.
    - 8y ago
- core-questions 8y ago
  > does our brain engage more when we’re reading a technical literature review moreso than if it was a novel I'm sure it does, but moreso I think that it might be more a function of the actual style of language used than it is of the subject matter. For example, if you read any literature from a century ago, you'll likely notice that what we now call run-on sentences are used all over the place. These sentences have a parsing tree that is far deeper and more self-referential than modern authors use, and so in turn likely engages the brain more than a simpler sentence structure would. Of course, this has negative connotations as far as clear communication goes, but it's a good exercise to spend a few weeks reading this kind of material - it definitely becomes noticeably more readable after more exposure. You'll also likely be familiar with the way that newspaper articles (particularly in tabloids and local rags) have dropped their reading grade-level standards and are using simpler linguistic constructions to help ensure their audience understands. There's probably a bit of a negative feedback loop in there somewhere.
  - onemoresoop 8y ago
    It is also true in older literature that writers were paid by the number of words and naturally you'd get a very descriptive styles, lots and lots and lots of details
    - ulisesrmzroche 8y ago
      No, that's not true everywhere. See Djuna Barnes for example.
DoctorOetker 8y ago
Is there a difference between vertically and horizontally written languages, given that the left field of view of each eye are processed in the same half of the brain, and the right half of FOV processed in the other half of the brain? For horizontal languages like say english, the most relevant words are to the left and right of the current word, so left context and right context are initially in different halves of the brain. For vertical languages relevant symbols are above and below the currently observed symbol, so if there is overlap of right and left FOV then both halves have the full context, if no overlap then both halves get the full context but only partially each symbol...
- d4mi3n 8y ago
  Does this matter in practice? We have binocular vision--when I read, I focus on a word with both eyes. The occasions where I'm reading with just one eye or another are fairly rare.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    The structural and functional division isn't between the eyes; it is present in both eyes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divided_visual_field_paradigm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divided_visual_field_paradigm So if we are reading horizontally, the not-yet seen text is in a portion of the field of vision of both eyes that is routed to one brain hemisphere; the text already scanned is in the opposite field of vision going to the other hemisphere.
  - Baeocystin 8y ago
    The field of vision split is right down the middle of each eye. One side of the brain gets the two left-halves, the other the right. FWIW. Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat has a chapter on hemispatial neglect which is an interesting read. (The entire book is fascinating.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_f...
    - kazinator 8y ago
otakucode 8y ago
Learning IS brain transformation. Essentially by definition. Also, lack of exposure to novel intense experience actively prevents brain development because it prevents learning. This will be a growing problem as adolescents in particular lead lives which are designed to eliminate all novel stimulus and thwart every natural inclination to seek novelty. It's certainly encouraging news to see that the dropoff in neuroplasticity that comes later might be caused by the dead boring lives of industrialized adults rather than any insurmountable biological hurdle. At least, that's what I get out of this.
- crispyporkbites 8y ago
  but how do you know that the crazy distractions of the modern world aren't growing adolescent brains in ways yours will never grow? Throughout history adults have always looked down on children, yet the upcoming generation always ends up surpassing their parents achievements. This reminds me of something Socrates said, over 2 millenia ago: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
  - desas 8y ago
    They should surpass us, they're stood on our shoulders after all.
    - kick_in_the_dor 8y ago
      Very elegantly put.
  - kick_in_the_dor 8y ago
    "yet the upcoming generation always ends up surpassing their parents achievements" What do you consider "surpassing their parents achievements"? Sure we may be continuing the technical progress of their generation (i.e., picking up where they left off to go retire), but who's to say that given a greater lifespan, they wouldn't go on to achieve what we have? If I spent 30 years of my life developing principles of some new science, and the next generation uses these principles to make life better, are they surpassing my achievements?
deleted 8y ago
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acconrad 8y ago
I'm about to turn 33 and only within the last year have I really discovered the joy of reading books. I went from reading maybe 1 or 2 books a year to reading a book a week, and I'm on track to read close to 50 books this year (slowed down quite a bit by reading a textbook as part of auditing a class). If only I had discovered this earlier in my life who knows where I'd be now, but better late than never I suppose.
- proee 8y ago
  What are the benefits that you're experiencing with increased reading?
  - marnett 8y ago
    I'd say a deeper more complex and connected understanding of the world. Truly phenomenal authors were masters of framing so many things I thought of strictly in objective terms in a more subjective light. You begin to realize how the world is filled with very shallow thoughts and ideas. You can really only come to that realization after digesting long form arguments and narratives.
    - kick_in_the_dor 8y ago
      Who are some of your favorite authors?
      - marnett 8y ago
        Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Dostoyevsky, Ursula Le Guin, David Foster Wallace (I could truly go on forever, but I think these authors are phenomenal, with themes and meta-themes different from one another). I think if you watch an interview with DFW you will realize just how much he has thought of just about every facet of modern, entertainment-centric western society - all coming together in Infinite Jest which is the most depressing book I've ever read (he later committed suicide, so it might have been the most depressing contemporary book ever written either). Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness models an entire planetary civilization with no fixed sex (written in 1969, mind you), which I found very eye-opening. Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (as well as Crime and Punishment) are extraordinarily psychological and philosophical - ethics, free will, and God are centric. Both Steinbeck and Vonnegut have multiple books I'd recommend, but East of Eden by Steinbeck is an all-time favorite tackling good and evil (honestly Nietzsche in novel); Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut (just a notch above Heller's Catch-22) is the embodiment of darkness and absurdity. Take an anti-war sentiment and an author willing to tiptoe to the border of sanity and insanity and the result is SH5. It is truly brilliant, and as someone who is fortunate enough to not have ever been impacted greatly by wartime, it is equally eye-opening. Honorable mention (a book I have read more recently) goes to Tom Wolfe with The Bonfire of the Vanities. This book combines the legal system (police and prosecutors), personal greed and ambition (Wall Street bond salesman), racism (Media biases), and class structures and privilege in a hard hitting social critique on 80s New York City. Everything between its covers is key to understanding how the world actually works. This turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated. Hopefully it is helpful!
yantrams 8y ago
Seeing how this research is done with syllabic scripts, it might be worthwhile to have the same repeated with alphabetic and hieroglyphic scripts and see if any interesting results can be gleaned, like something equivalent to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Edit: Grammar
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  I've once started learning Tibetan and felt like on some powerful nootropics during the days. Perhaps that's the effect and it can possibly happen to literate people if they learn a language that is very different to their mother tongue and uses a really different script.
  - yantrams 8y ago
    That's an interesting sample point. Lets hope research can shed more light on this.
kazinator 8y ago
> “While it is quite difficult for us to learn a new language, it appears to be much easier for us to learn to read. Sometimes the writing system of your own language can be formidably difficult, on par with learning a foreign language, if not harder.
- nneonneo 8y ago
  Can confirm - after many years of study I’m finally at the point where my spoken Mandarin is passable, but dear lord the written language is tough...
qwerty456127 8y ago
I wish I could actually learn to read... I mean faster than average (I read more slow than average actually) while still getting everything.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  I read very slow too. Nothing really helped so I decided to just ignore it. It doesn't really affect my life except I can't read subtitles (they change much faster than I can read). I can read books just fine, except a few times slower than normal people. This also didn't affect my academic performance. It's an unfortunate situation nevertheless.
graphememes 8y ago
What if I only read buzzfeed. Is there a scientific study for that?
- aquabeagle 8y ago
  Yes, and you'll never guess these top 10 crazy results!
- onemoresoop 8y ago
  That's a different type of reading, you don't immerse sufficiently enough into lecture to get anything other than information from it. Deep reading requires you to spend time with one long read at a time.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Scientists hate him!
TomMckenny 8y ago
>reading is such a new ability in human evolutionary history As I understand it, only about 2% of our species' history. But I would give anything to know if there are undiscovered enormous innovations on that level and if so, what they are.
- Kenji 8y ago
  Science is even newer and arguably an even more enormous innovation. The capability of structured, logical thought and falsifiable theories is a giant leap forward in terms of cognition. I too cannot help but wonder what lies beyond the currently known thinking tools.
- jniedrauer 8y ago
  As of 2017, we're generating more data each year than we previously generated in the entirety of human history. Although comparing refrigerator's IP addresses to the Iliad may not be a fair comparison.
amirbehzad 8y ago
Does reading HackerNews count?
kochikame 8y ago
I wonder if a similar change would occur in the brains of native English speakers who learn Chinese or Japanese as adults? After all, it's a whole new way set of very different characters to learn and decode. It may be that once the big shift has occurred when you learned to read your native language, it will never happen again, as you now have the "firmware" to read anything.
- gleenn 8y ago
  Learning Japanese at the age of 30 definitely bent my brain in new and interesting ways. Certainly when communicating, it made me realize how much of speaking is actually stringing together groups of words to convey meaning and way less about using some perfect syntax or grammar. The whole backwards grammar relative to English also was pretty new and challenging.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    As a native English speaker currently learning Japanese I love just how logical it all is. I'm not sure if it's because I'm from a software development background but I'm finding it so easy to learn. As you suggested in your comment, it's a whole different way of thinking.
- jniedrauer 8y ago
  I suspect that all written languages have more or less the same impact on our brains. It doesn't matter how ideas are expressed, just that they are expressed. Being able to represent abstract ideas as symbols makes reasoning about them possible in a way that you can never do with spoken language.
NamTaf 8y ago
I enjoy reading, but I've always struggled with it, particularly with larger, slower-paced, and more complex books (though it's never stopped me). I suspect I have pretty strong aphantasia [1] and so I never build mental images of the characters or their scenes, rather I only remember abstract descriptors about everything. I find that this makes it hard for me to follow storylines and in particular multiple story arcs in multiple different locations or timeframes. I think that this does impact the level of joy I get from reading, and envy those who get a rich tapestry of mental images from the stories. I found, for example, Matthew Reilly's Ice Station a relatively easy story when I read it as a teen because the pace was high and the action was contained to a relatively simple scene. On the other hand, I'm reading Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver right now and I'm really struggling to follow the story arcs because it jumps all over the place with its characters, scenes and timeframes. The fact I'm already familiar with most of the characters' names helps some of it stick, but I'm resigned to most of the secondary Royal Society characters being a generic conglomeration of traits and just treat them as a supporting cast without defined personalities in a lot of ways. I find that I also very quickly forget the contents of novels I read. I read Snow Crash about 5-8 years ago and then again earlier this year, and I barely remembered any of it. Certainly I think more stuck the second time, but it was still mostly new to me (e.g. the character concepts and biggest plot points kind of stuck, but nothing more). I sort of hope that reading can help me improve with my memory, but it hasn't in about 25 years of reading (I'm in my early 30s) so I don't hold particularly high hopes. I do wonder whether the aphantasia would've been even worse had I not read so much when growing up, but maybe if it hasn't noticeably improved in my life then equivalently it would never have been any worse had I not read. I wonder if my brain in some ways reflects an illiterate person in the visual cortex areas? On the other hand, reading is undoubtedly the reason my vocabulary and spelling is as good as it is. Certainly, it's is a very valuable skill and I am glad that I continued to engage it since I learned to read as a child. [1]: https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-feels-to-be-blind-in-your-mind/10156834777480504/ https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...
- Groxx 8y ago
  Huh. TIL. I wonder if that applies to me too, though maybe in more of a sliding scale way. At best I can almost kinda maybe visualize things in very small flashes, but it's basically never what I'd consider visual / auditory / etc. I just kinda "know" what I'm thinking of, and that's the end of it.
intrasight 8y ago
I'm curious how much of the benefits accrue if you use audio books - which is how I do much of my "reading".
- radus 8y ago
  Do you primarily listen to audiobooks while you're doing something else?
  - the_duke 8y ago
    (not above commenter) I've started listening to audio books during cardio workouts. To me, the experience is a bit less involved than reading. A good narrator can paint quite the picture with intonation, emphasis, ... I find it is still a way more involved and active experience then, eg, watching a movie or TV show. I still imagine the scenery in my mind, think about the characters motivations, ... With a busy schedule, it is a great compromise, I think.
  - intrasight 8y ago
    Audiobooks are the easiest "multitasking" I think. A great example is while driving. This weekend I listened to 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson while driving. I also listen while gardening or cleaning. Really only works for tasks with really low cognitive load.
alwaysreading 8y ago
Like others, the Kindle has helped me pick up reading more consistently. Highly recommend the Kindle Oasis https://amzn.to/2F8egod https://amzn.to/2F8egod
- wild_preference 8y ago
  Two of the three comments that this new account has made includes a shortened Amazon URL that expands into a URL with the referral ID of "amazonbook10-20". Let's keep spam off HN. Btw, reusing Amazon referral IDs across the internet links all of your accounts.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
Beefin 8y ago
When does everyone prefer to read ?
- dorchadas 8y ago
  All the time, to be honest. I find myself reading way too much at work, instead of doing other things (grading papers, proctoring a test efficiently, etc.) I read at home, at the gym (and sometimes skimp on running to do inclined treadmill or bike just so I can read) and even when I'm in a car with others driving. Hell, I read during a board game meetup the other day (it was at a bookstore!) because I was close to finishing one (yes, I do realize how rude it was, and didn't read except while waiting to start up a new game). I read at night mostly though, and it's a nice way to wind down before bed. During the summer, while I'm off, I'll also walk and read as well. I generally don't tend to pass of social events to read, though (boardgame night was an exception because I had, like, 20 pages left), so that cuts me down some.
- projektir 8y ago
  On the bus, in my case. Sometimes I'll go to a coffee shop.
moh_maya 8y ago
I wonder what the effects will be of learning to read a "new" language, in addition to ones that we already know. Would that result in detectable changes? Would the type of "new" language matter? Say, Someone who knows English, learning to read French, v/s the same person learning to read Mandarin, which has a very different structure?
deleted 8y ago
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pontifier 8y ago
It never really occurred to me how utterly foreign reading was. I guess it makes sense because, like the article mentions, it's such a recent innovation that a dedicated region hasn't yet evolved in us. I never thought about the actual deep changes in the brain that must happen when learning. When I read a book, I'm often totally transported into that world. I wonder if areas of my brain invoved with vivid dreaming are being activated when I am in this state.
- mackrevinack 8y ago
  two of the main things people use to enter a lucid dreaming state (becoming aware that you're dreaming while you are asleep) are switching a light bulb on and off and the other is to read some text. both are fairly new things to our brains. the light bulb one is easy enough. you just have to flick a switch every time you walk past one (this is during the day while you're awake) and then eventually you will remember to do it in your dream. when the light doesn't switch off in your dream, thats when your conscious mind will hopefully notice and you can start to take control over the dream its a bit harder to do the same with words. when you find some in your dream, you have to focus on a few of them and try to memorise them, (which isn't easy when your mind is in that state) then look away for a few seconds and then look back and see if they are still the same. ive only ever managed to test that out once myself but after a while the words started to change and others disappeared which made me snap out of it and realise i was in a dream. tl;dr wordz is new init?
  - LambdaComplex 8y ago
    One of the other common checks is to look at your hands though. Those definitely aren't new (I did that once, and iirc I had 2 fingers on one hand and 7 on the other? Or something like that)
  - arandr0x 8y ago
    This is interesting to me, because I'm an avid reader in real life and usually lucid dream (though I don't train myself to). Most dreams to a degree feel like fiction to me and they're enjoyable in the same way reading a good book is, except better, since they're about me. I have never linked this to my reading before.
sarabande 8y ago
Cool article! The original is actually from a year and a half ago (https://www.mpg.de/11312776/lesenlernen-veraenderung-gehirn-erwachsene https://www.mpg.de/11312776/lesenlernen-veraenderung-gehirn-...), curious why they published it only now in English. One quote bothered me, however: "Hindi, one of the official languages of India, is based on Devanagari, a scripture with complex characters describing whole syllables or words rather than single letters." This isn't entirely correct. Devanagari: - isn't complex. there are only 46 characters, whose strokes aren't meaningfully harder than Latin ones to write, unlike, say, Chinese where strokes can be intricate. They're typically one or two-stroke characters. - 1:1 unambiguously maps writings to sounds, unlike English. yes, it does map to syllables. it's immediately obvious how to pronounce a word when reading it. I can't imagine them having to learn a language like English, where you have to rote memorize exceptions all the time. - doesn't have characters that describe whole words...not sure where they got this idea. There are really short words that can be said with one syllable, but that's coincidence, like in English "a" is both a character and a word, though I wouldn't claim that letters map to words because of it.
- posterboy 8y ago
  English is easy to learn if you just pronounce it like it's written and how it was pronounced, you know
  - OrwellianChild 8y ago
    Seems like a good time to link to "The Chaos" by Gerard Nolst Trenite [1]... It serves to educate native English speakers on how absurd the language (written vs. spoken) is, while simultaneously striking fear into the hearts of ESL folks worldwide. Best read out loud - try too appreciate how much context and rule-of-rhyme you have to apply to read it correctly. [1] http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html
black-tea 8y ago
It makes sense. Unlike speaking, reading is something we don't just learn naturally, yet it completely changes the way you see the world. When you see some written language you can't not read it. I do wonder, though. Do humans with no written language still understand that writing contains information, or does it just look like noise to them?
ulisesrmzroche 8y ago
I wonder what (if any) effect do graphic novels or hieroglyphics have in the brain. Do they change the brain structure fundamentally like this too?
downrightmike 8y ago
I've noticed that since I've started reading books for fun, that understanding technical information is easier.

367 points by dnetesn 8y ago

>”These deep structures in the thalamus and brainstem help our visual cortex to filter important information from the flood of visual input even before we consciously perceive it.” Interestingly, it seems that the more the signal timings between the two brain regions are aligned, the better the reading capabilities. “We, therefore, believe that these brain systems increasingly fine-tune their communication as learners become more and more proficient in reading,” the neuroscientist explains further. “This could explain why experienced readers navigate more efficiently through a text.” I read the headline and instantly wondered if the same result occurs as we age and continue to fine tune our reading skills. The above passage seems to confirm the age old saying of reading keeping the mind active. One thing I am wondering though is if there is a certain types of literature that the brains reacts in a more positive or less than observation way. For example, does our brain engage more when we’re reading a technical literature review moreso than if it was a novel? Or vice versa. Is this why professionals—lawyers are the main ones i can think of—who comb through hundreds of dense reading weekly get viewed as achieving such a masters ability in reading?

galois198 8y ago
> One thing I am wondering though is if there is a certain types of literature that the brains reacts in a more positive or less than observation way. For example, does our brain engage more when we’re reading a technical literature review moreso than if it was a novel? I've often wondered this also. It would be interesting to quantitatively determine the effects of reading fiction versus non-fiction material on the mind.
- irishloop 8y ago
  Intuitively it would make sense to me that they both provide advantages to the mind. Certainly, being able to parse dense technical literature is impressive, but the ability to use the imagination and think creatively would probably use different parts of the mind, and I'd think the "best" minds could do both. Wasn't it said that Einstein kind of came up with the whole idea about relativity based on the imagined idea of "riding" a beam of light or something like that?
  - otras 8y ago
    I highly recommend Richard Feynman's talk [0] on imagining physics from the BBC series "Fun to Imagine": "In the case of science, I think that one of the things that make it difficult is that it takes a lot of imagination. It's very hard to imagine all the crazy things that things really are like." [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zZbX_9ru9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zZbX_9ru9U
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  I believe any current studies focused mostly on brain engagements on screen vs book. We know that there are studies that indicate that reading fiction engages the brain in such a way that it is speculated a given reader literally experiences the fiction as if it were real life.
stevenjohns 8y ago
Anecdotally, I relearned[0] to read and write in Arabic in 2016. When I started I could just recognize some letters off-hand and when I stopped I had the reading ability of a six year old[1]. I excelled quite rapidly and it's coincidentally tied to a time of intense emotional and intellectual development for me. Even my skills in programming have doubled or tripled during that time. To the point where the then-CTO of the company picked it and brought it up. I went out and doubled my salary and job responsibilities a year later. I'm not sure if it's related to the reading, or if the reading was a side-effect of it, but I thought I'd share. [0] I attended a weekly class for several months when I was 8 but we didn't get through half of a first grade book. [1] Although I can make out the letters and can write pretty good too, it takes me longer than usual and I usually can't make sense of 60% of what I'm reading because written Arabic is in the very formal MSA and I'm only familiar with a regional dialect. A comparison to this would be someone who's only familiar with NY-borough slang trying to make sense of Shakespeare.
- groth 8y ago
  how did you re-learn to read? I am ethnically chinese and have long been meaning to (re?)-acquire the mother tongue.
  - stevenjohns 8y ago
    I imagine Chinese would be a lot harder. With Arabic, it's a total of 28 letters with more or less 3 different wants of writing them, giving a total of 84 possible glyphs. On top of this there are various accents that can be placed on every letter. In essence, it's not that much more complicated than some sort of Latin alphabet (i.e Spanish or Italian). The process I used was to learn a new letter everyday (with its three combinations) then found a local Lebanese church that had Arabic classes and joined up. I was a lot better than everyone else, because I went in with prior knowledge, so I was always at least several lessons ahead which allowed me to utilise my time with the teacher to ask questions on specific things rather than just trying to keep up with the core coursework.
tarunkotia 8y ago
As long as you make new neural connections your brain is going to grow[0]. An anecdotal fact which I heard many years ago was that adding a new perspective to look at something is like increasing your IQ by 10-20 points. Simply reading a lot of text within your comfort zone is not going to increase your mental capacity. [0]https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung
- Wistar 8y ago
  I wonder if learning to play music later in life has similar effects. I have read that music, if learned young in life — by age 12 or so, actually produces physical changes in the brain.
  - criddell 8y ago
    That's the first thing I wondered as well since I'm currently trying (and mostly failing) to learn how to play my guitar. I also wonder what the limits to learning are. At some point, if I learn something new, does pushing that knowledge into my long-term store replace or weaken an existing memory?
    - Baeocystin 8y ago
      I think of it as a time-decay function. There are only so many attentive, focused hours one can give during a day, and a memory only lasts so long before it decays from disuse. Some amount of area under this curve represents what a person can functionally retain. It isn't a fixed amount, as more connections between subjects tends to reinforce both, but there is a limit.
- bitwize 8y ago
  1) Neurogenesis halts in your early 20s. After that, no new neurons for you, sorry. Although the connections may change. 2) "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points" is actually one of Alan Kay's famous quips.
  - 8y ago
core-questions 8y ago
> does our brain engage more when we’re reading a technical literature review moreso than if it was a novel I'm sure it does, but moreso I think that it might be more a function of the actual style of language used than it is of the subject matter. For example, if you read any literature from a century ago, you'll likely notice that what we now call run-on sentences are used all over the place. These sentences have a parsing tree that is far deeper and more self-referential than modern authors use, and so in turn likely engages the brain more than a simpler sentence structure would. Of course, this has negative connotations as far as clear communication goes, but it's a good exercise to spend a few weeks reading this kind of material - it definitely becomes noticeably more readable after more exposure. You'll also likely be familiar with the way that newspaper articles (particularly in tabloids and local rags) have dropped their reading grade-level standards and are using simpler linguistic constructions to help ensure their audience understands. There's probably a bit of a negative feedback loop in there somewhere.
- onemoresoop 8y ago
  It is also true in older literature that writers were paid by the number of words and naturally you'd get a very descriptive styles, lots and lots and lots of details
  - ulisesrmzroche 8y ago
    No, that's not true everywhere. See Djuna Barnes for example.

DoctorOetker 8y ago

Is there a difference between vertically and horizontally written languages, given that the left field of view of each eye are processed in the same half of the brain, and the right half of FOV processed in the other half of the brain? For horizontal languages like say english, the most relevant words are to the left and right of the current word, so left context and right context are initially in different halves of the brain. For vertical languages relevant symbols are above and below the currently observed symbol, so if there is overlap of right and left FOV then both halves have the full context, if no overlap then both halves get the full context but only partially each symbol...

d4mi3n 8y ago
Does this matter in practice? We have binocular vision--when I read, I focus on a word with both eyes. The occasions where I'm reading with just one eye or another are fairly rare.
- kazinator 8y ago
  The structural and functional division isn't between the eyes; it is present in both eyes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divided_visual_field_paradigm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divided_visual_field_paradigm So if we are reading horizontally, the not-yet seen text is in a portion of the field of vision of both eyes that is routed to one brain hemisphere; the text already scanned is in the opposite field of vision going to the other hemisphere.
- Baeocystin 8y ago
  The field of vision split is right down the middle of each eye. One side of the brain gets the two left-halves, the other the right. FWIW. Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat has a chapter on hemispatial neglect which is an interesting read. (The entire book is fascinating.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_f...
  - kazinator 8y ago

otakucode 8y ago

Learning IS brain transformation. Essentially by definition. Also, lack of exposure to novel intense experience actively prevents brain development because it prevents learning. This will be a growing problem as adolescents in particular lead lives which are designed to eliminate all novel stimulus and thwart every natural inclination to seek novelty. It's certainly encouraging news to see that the dropoff in neuroplasticity that comes later might be caused by the dead boring lives of industrialized adults rather than any insurmountable biological hurdle. At least, that's what I get out of this.

crispyporkbites 8y ago
but how do you know that the crazy distractions of the modern world aren't growing adolescent brains in ways yours will never grow? Throughout history adults have always looked down on children, yet the upcoming generation always ends up surpassing their parents achievements. This reminds me of something Socrates said, over 2 millenia ago: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
- desas 8y ago
  They should surpass us, they're stood on our shoulders after all.
  - kick_in_the_dor 8y ago
    Very elegantly put.
- kick_in_the_dor 8y ago
  "yet the upcoming generation always ends up surpassing their parents achievements" What do you consider "surpassing their parents achievements"? Sure we may be continuing the technical progress of their generation (i.e., picking up where they left off to go retire), but who's to say that given a greater lifespan, they wouldn't go on to achieve what we have? If I spent 30 years of my life developing principles of some new science, and the next generation uses these principles to make life better, are they surpassing my achievements?

deleted 8y ago

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acconrad 8y ago

I'm about to turn 33 and only within the last year have I really discovered the joy of reading books. I went from reading maybe 1 or 2 books a year to reading a book a week, and I'm on track to read close to 50 books this year (slowed down quite a bit by reading a textbook as part of auditing a class). If only I had discovered this earlier in my life who knows where I'd be now, but better late than never I suppose.

proee 8y ago
What are the benefits that you're experiencing with increased reading?
- marnett 8y ago
  I'd say a deeper more complex and connected understanding of the world. Truly phenomenal authors were masters of framing so many things I thought of strictly in objective terms in a more subjective light. You begin to realize how the world is filled with very shallow thoughts and ideas. You can really only come to that realization after digesting long form arguments and narratives.
  - kick_in_the_dor 8y ago
    Who are some of your favorite authors?
    - marnett 8y ago
      Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Dostoyevsky, Ursula Le Guin, David Foster Wallace (I could truly go on forever, but I think these authors are phenomenal, with themes and meta-themes different from one another). I think if you watch an interview with DFW you will realize just how much he has thought of just about every facet of modern, entertainment-centric western society - all coming together in Infinite Jest which is the most depressing book I've ever read (he later committed suicide, so it might have been the most depressing contemporary book ever written either). Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness models an entire planetary civilization with no fixed sex (written in 1969, mind you), which I found very eye-opening. Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (as well as Crime and Punishment) are extraordinarily psychological and philosophical - ethics, free will, and God are centric. Both Steinbeck and Vonnegut have multiple books I'd recommend, but East of Eden by Steinbeck is an all-time favorite tackling good and evil (honestly Nietzsche in novel); Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut (just a notch above Heller's Catch-22) is the embodiment of darkness and absurdity. Take an anti-war sentiment and an author willing to tiptoe to the border of sanity and insanity and the result is SH5. It is truly brilliant, and as someone who is fortunate enough to not have ever been impacted greatly by wartime, it is equally eye-opening. Honorable mention (a book I have read more recently) goes to Tom Wolfe with The Bonfire of the Vanities. This book combines the legal system (police and prosecutors), personal greed and ambition (Wall Street bond salesman), racism (Media biases), and class structures and privilege in a hard hitting social critique on 80s New York City. Everything between its covers is key to understanding how the world actually works. This turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated. Hopefully it is helpful!

yantrams 8y ago

Seeing how this research is done with syllabic scripts, it might be worthwhile to have the same repeated with alphabetic and hieroglyphic scripts and see if any interesting results can be gleaned, like something equivalent to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Edit: Grammar

qwerty456127 8y ago
I've once started learning Tibetan and felt like on some powerful nootropics during the days. Perhaps that's the effect and it can possibly happen to literate people if they learn a language that is very different to their mother tongue and uses a really different script.
- yantrams 8y ago
  That's an interesting sample point. Lets hope research can shed more light on this.

kazinator 8y ago

> “While it is quite difficult for us to learn a new language, it appears to be much easier for us to learn to read. Sometimes the writing system of your own language can be formidably difficult, on par with learning a foreign language, if not harder.

nneonneo 8y ago
Can confirm - after many years of study I’m finally at the point where my spoken Mandarin is passable, but dear lord the written language is tough...

qwerty456127 8y ago

I wish I could actually learn to read... I mean faster than average (I read more slow than average actually) while still getting everything.

gnulinux 8y ago
I read very slow too. Nothing really helped so I decided to just ignore it. It doesn't really affect my life except I can't read subtitles (they change much faster than I can read). I can read books just fine, except a few times slower than normal people. This also didn't affect my academic performance. It's an unfortunate situation nevertheless.

graphememes 8y ago

What if I only read buzzfeed. Is there a scientific study for that?

aquabeagle 8y ago
Yes, and you'll never guess these top 10 crazy results!
onemoresoop 8y ago
That's a different type of reading, you don't immerse sufficiently enough into lecture to get anything other than information from it. Deep reading requires you to spend time with one long read at a time.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Scientists hate him!

TomMckenny 8y ago

>reading is such a new ability in human evolutionary history As I understand it, only about 2% of our species' history. But I would give anything to know if there are undiscovered enormous innovations on that level and if so, what they are.

Kenji 8y ago
Science is even newer and arguably an even more enormous innovation. The capability of structured, logical thought and falsifiable theories is a giant leap forward in terms of cognition. I too cannot help but wonder what lies beyond the currently known thinking tools.
jniedrauer 8y ago
As of 2017, we're generating more data each year than we previously generated in the entirety of human history. Although comparing refrigerator's IP addresses to the Iliad may not be a fair comparison.

amirbehzad 8y ago

Does reading HackerNews count?

kochikame 8y ago

I wonder if a similar change would occur in the brains of native English speakers who learn Chinese or Japanese as adults? After all, it's a whole new way set of very different characters to learn and decode. It may be that once the big shift has occurred when you learned to read your native language, it will never happen again, as you now have the "firmware" to read anything.

gleenn 8y ago
Learning Japanese at the age of 30 definitely bent my brain in new and interesting ways. Certainly when communicating, it made me realize how much of speaking is actually stringing together groups of words to convey meaning and way less about using some perfect syntax or grammar. The whole backwards grammar relative to English also was pretty new and challenging.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  As a native English speaker currently learning Japanese I love just how logical it all is. I'm not sure if it's because I'm from a software development background but I'm finding it so easy to learn. As you suggested in your comment, it's a whole different way of thinking.
jniedrauer 8y ago
I suspect that all written languages have more or less the same impact on our brains. It doesn't matter how ideas are expressed, just that they are expressed. Being able to represent abstract ideas as symbols makes reasoning about them possible in a way that you can never do with spoken language.

NamTaf 8y ago

I enjoy reading, but I've always struggled with it, particularly with larger, slower-paced, and more complex books (though it's never stopped me). I suspect I have pretty strong aphantasia [1] and so I never build mental images of the characters or their scenes, rather I only remember abstract descriptors about everything. I find that this makes it hard for me to follow storylines and in particular multiple story arcs in multiple different locations or timeframes. I think that this does impact the level of joy I get from reading, and envy those who get a rich tapestry of mental images from the stories. I found, for example, Matthew Reilly's Ice Station a relatively easy story when I read it as a teen because the pace was high and the action was contained to a relatively simple scene. On the other hand, I'm reading Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver right now and I'm really struggling to follow the story arcs because it jumps all over the place with its characters, scenes and timeframes. The fact I'm already familiar with most of the characters' names helps some of it stick, but I'm resigned to most of the secondary Royal Society characters being a generic conglomeration of traits and just treat them as a supporting cast without defined personalities in a lot of ways. I find that I also very quickly forget the contents of novels I read. I read Snow Crash about 5-8 years ago and then again earlier this year, and I barely remembered any of it. Certainly I think more stuck the second time, but it was still mostly new to me (e.g. the character concepts and biggest plot points kind of stuck, but nothing more). I sort of hope that reading can help me improve with my memory, but it hasn't in about 25 years of reading (I'm in my early 30s) so I don't hold particularly high hopes. I do wonder whether the aphantasia would've been even worse had I not read so much when growing up, but maybe if it hasn't noticeably improved in my life then equivalently it would never have been any worse had I not read. I wonder if my brain in some ways reflects an illiterate person in the visual cortex areas? On the other hand, reading is undoubtedly the reason my vocabulary and spelling is as good as it is. Certainly, it's is a very valuable skill and I am glad that I continued to engage it since I learned to read as a child. [1]: https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-feels-to-be-blind-in-your-mind/10156834777480504/ https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...

Groxx 8y ago
Huh. TIL. I wonder if that applies to me too, though maybe in more of a sliding scale way. At best I can almost kinda maybe visualize things in very small flashes, but it's basically never what I'd consider visual / auditory / etc. I just kinda "know" what I'm thinking of, and that's the end of it.

intrasight 8y ago

I'm curious how much of the benefits accrue if you use audio books - which is how I do much of my "reading".

radus 8y ago
Do you primarily listen to audiobooks while you're doing something else?
- the_duke 8y ago
  (not above commenter) I've started listening to audio books during cardio workouts. To me, the experience is a bit less involved than reading. A good narrator can paint quite the picture with intonation, emphasis, ... I find it is still a way more involved and active experience then, eg, watching a movie or TV show. I still imagine the scenery in my mind, think about the characters motivations, ... With a busy schedule, it is a great compromise, I think.
- intrasight 8y ago
  Audiobooks are the easiest "multitasking" I think. A great example is while driving. This weekend I listened to 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson while driving. I also listen while gardening or cleaning. Really only works for tasks with really low cognitive load.

alwaysreading 8y ago

Like others, the Kindle has helped me pick up reading more consistently. Highly recommend the Kindle Oasis https://amzn.to/2F8egod https://amzn.to/2F8egod

wild_preference 8y ago
Two of the three comments that this new account has made includes a shortened Amazon URL that expands into a URL with the referral ID of "amazonbook10-20". Let's keep spam off HN. Btw, reusing Amazon referral IDs across the internet links all of your accounts.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

Beefin 8y ago

When does everyone prefer to read ?

dorchadas 8y ago
All the time, to be honest. I find myself reading way too much at work, instead of doing other things (grading papers, proctoring a test efficiently, etc.) I read at home, at the gym (and sometimes skimp on running to do inclined treadmill or bike just so I can read) and even when I'm in a car with others driving. Hell, I read during a board game meetup the other day (it was at a bookstore!) because I was close to finishing one (yes, I do realize how rude it was, and didn't read except while waiting to start up a new game). I read at night mostly though, and it's a nice way to wind down before bed. During the summer, while I'm off, I'll also walk and read as well. I generally don't tend to pass of social events to read, though (boardgame night was an exception because I had, like, 20 pages left), so that cuts me down some.
projektir 8y ago
On the bus, in my case. Sometimes I'll go to a coffee shop.

moh_maya 8y ago

I wonder what the effects will be of learning to read a "new" language, in addition to ones that we already know. Would that result in detectable changes? Would the type of "new" language matter? Say, Someone who knows English, learning to read French, v/s the same person learning to read Mandarin, which has a very different structure?

deleted 8y ago

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pontifier 8y ago

It never really occurred to me how utterly foreign reading was. I guess it makes sense because, like the article mentions, it's such a recent innovation that a dedicated region hasn't yet evolved in us. I never thought about the actual deep changes in the brain that must happen when learning. When I read a book, I'm often totally transported into that world. I wonder if areas of my brain invoved with vivid dreaming are being activated when I am in this state.

mackrevinack 8y ago
two of the main things people use to enter a lucid dreaming state (becoming aware that you're dreaming while you are asleep) are switching a light bulb on and off and the other is to read some text. both are fairly new things to our brains. the light bulb one is easy enough. you just have to flick a switch every time you walk past one (this is during the day while you're awake) and then eventually you will remember to do it in your dream. when the light doesn't switch off in your dream, thats when your conscious mind will hopefully notice and you can start to take control over the dream its a bit harder to do the same with words. when you find some in your dream, you have to focus on a few of them and try to memorise them, (which isn't easy when your mind is in that state) then look away for a few seconds and then look back and see if they are still the same. ive only ever managed to test that out once myself but after a while the words started to change and others disappeared which made me snap out of it and realise i was in a dream. tl;dr wordz is new init?
- LambdaComplex 8y ago
  One of the other common checks is to look at your hands though. Those definitely aren't new (I did that once, and iirc I had 2 fingers on one hand and 7 on the other? Or something like that)
- arandr0x 8y ago
  This is interesting to me, because I'm an avid reader in real life and usually lucid dream (though I don't train myself to). Most dreams to a degree feel like fiction to me and they're enjoyable in the same way reading a good book is, except better, since they're about me. I have never linked this to my reading before.

sarabande 8y ago

Cool article! The original is actually from a year and a half ago (https://www.mpg.de/11312776/lesenlernen-veraenderung-gehirn-erwachsene https://www.mpg.de/11312776/lesenlernen-veraenderung-gehirn-...), curious why they published it only now in English. One quote bothered me, however: "Hindi, one of the official languages of India, is based on Devanagari, a scripture with complex characters describing whole syllables or words rather than single letters." This isn't entirely correct. Devanagari: - isn't complex. there are only 46 characters, whose strokes aren't meaningfully harder than Latin ones to write, unlike, say, Chinese where strokes can be intricate. They're typically one or two-stroke characters. - 1:1 unambiguously maps writings to sounds, unlike English. yes, it does map to syllables. it's immediately obvious how to pronounce a word when reading it. I can't imagine them having to learn a language like English, where you have to rote memorize exceptions all the time. - doesn't have characters that describe whole words...not sure where they got this idea. There are really short words that can be said with one syllable, but that's coincidence, like in English "a" is both a character and a word, though I wouldn't claim that letters map to words because of it.

posterboy 8y ago
English is easy to learn if you just pronounce it like it's written and how it was pronounced, you know
- OrwellianChild 8y ago
  Seems like a good time to link to "The Chaos" by Gerard Nolst Trenite [1]... It serves to educate native English speakers on how absurd the language (written vs. spoken) is, while simultaneously striking fear into the hearts of ESL folks worldwide. Best read out loud - try too appreciate how much context and rule-of-rhyme you have to apply to read it correctly. [1] http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html

black-tea 8y ago

It makes sense. Unlike speaking, reading is something we don't just learn naturally, yet it completely changes the way you see the world. When you see some written language you can't not read it. I do wonder, though. Do humans with no written language still understand that writing contains information, or does it just look like noise to them?

ulisesrmzroche 8y ago

I wonder what (if any) effect do graphic novels or hieroglyphics have in the brain. Do they change the brain structure fundamentally like this too?

downrightmike 8y ago

I've noticed that since I've started reading books for fun, that understanding technical information is easier.