The Brain and the Meeting of Different Cultures

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The Brain and the Meeting of Different Cultures

Bruce Wexler explores the social implications of the close and changing neurobiological relationship between the individual and the environment, with particular attention to the difficulties individuals face in adulthood when the environment changes beyond their ability to maintain the fit between existing internal structure and external reality.

These difficulties are evident in:

• Bereavement.
  
• The meeting of different cultures (the experience of immigrants).
  
• The phenomenon of interethnic violence.

The experience of immigrants:
The clue of these difficulties comes from the experience of migrants to a new culture, in who suddenly find themselves in an environment that not match internal structure modeled on the rearing environment in their native land.

A common response is to recreate a microcopy of their native culture in their home and their friendship circles. Still, like bereavement, it is prolonged and difficult struggle to reshape internal structure to match the new, general cultural environment.

The children of immigrant families are more successful than their parents at the necessary internal transformations, which often leading to heightened and problematic differences between immigrant parents and their children.

"Brain And Culture" Neurobiology, Ideology, And Social Change, Bruce E. Wexl, 2006, pages 8 - 9

Linguistically-mediated Literacy Development (2)

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Linguistically-mediated Literacy Development (2)

The direct addressed route for accessing meaning without sounding words is likely to be less critical in languages with shallow orthographies, such as Italian, than in those with deep orthographies, such as English.

Brain research supports the hypothesis that the routes involved differ according to the depth of the orthographical structure.

The “visual word form area” (occipital-temporal VWFA) implicated in identifying word meaning based on non-phonological proprieties in English speakers appears to be less critical for Italian speakers (Paulesu et al., 2001a).

Indeed, preliminary results suggest that the brain of Italian native speakers employs a more efficient strategy when reading text than that of English native speakers.

Remarkably, this strategy is used even when Italian native speakers read in English, suggesting that the brain circuitry underlying reading for Italian native speakers develops in a different way than that underlying reading for English native speakers.

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 88

Linguistically-mediated Literacy Development (1)

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Linguistically-mediated Literacy Development (1)

While much of the neural circuitry underlying reading is the same across different languages, there are also some important differences.

A central theme concerning the brain and reading is the way that literacy is created though the colonisation of brain structures, including those specialised for language and those best suited to serve other functions.

The operations that are common to speech and printed word, such as semantics, syntax, and working memory recruit brain structures which are specialised for language and which are biologically-based and common across languages.

There are biological constraints determining which brain structures are best suited to take on other functions supporting literacy. Therefore, much reading circuitry is shared across languages.

Even so, literacy in different languages sometimes requires distinct functions, such as different decoding or word recognition strategies.

In these cases, distinct brain structures are often brought into play to support these aspects of reading which are distinctive to these particular languages.

Therefore, the dual route theory of reading, which was developed mainly based on research with English speakers, may require modification to describe reading in languages with less complex spelling and orthographic features and it is only partially relevant to non-alphabetic languages.

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 88

The “Dual Route” Theory for Reading

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The “Dual Route” Theory for Reading

The most comprehensive and well-supported model of reading to date is the “Dual Route” theory (Jobard, Crivello and Tzourio-Mazoyer, 2003). This theory provides a framework for describing reading in the brain at the level of the word.

As you look at the words on this page, this stimulus is first processed by the primary visual cortex. Then, pre-lexical processing occurs at the left occipito-temporal junction.

The dual route theory posits that processing then follows one of two complementary pathways. The assembled pathway involves an intermediate step of grapho-phonological conversion – converting letters/words into sounds – which occurs in certain left temporal and frontal areas, including Broca’s area.

The addressed pathway consists of a direct transfer of information from pre-lexical processing to meaning (semantic access). Both pathways terminate in the left basal temporal area, the left interior frontal gyrus, and the left posterior middle gyrus, or Wernicke’s area.

The pathway involving direct access to meaning has led to the proposal of a “visual word form area” (VWFA) at the ventral junction between the occipital and temporal lobes. This area was first proposed to contain a visual lexicon or collection of words which functions to immediately identify whole words when they are seen.

Recent research has suggested a modified conclusion that this region may actually consist of constellations of adjacent areas sensitive to various aspects of letter strings, such as length or order of words. The entire process from visual processing (seeing) to semantic retrieval (understanding) occurs very rapidly, all within about 600 mili-seconds.

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 87

Literacy Being Built “on Top of” Language

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Literacy Being Built “on Top of” Language

While the brain is not necessarily biologically inclined to acquire literacy, it is biologically inclined to adapt to experience. It is, for instance, endowed with language circuitry capable of processing visual input.

The brain’s plastic capacities of adaptability enable the stimuli coming from experience to utilise language structures when constructing the neural circuitry capable of supporting literacy. This is often expressed as literacy being built “on top of” language. In the terms of Vygotsky’s classic metaphor, language structures provide scaffolding for literacy to be constructed in the brain (Vygotsky, 1978).

Since literacy is built, in part, with language circuitry, future research should investigate the possibility that developmental sensitivities for certain aspects of language acquisition influence the facility with which the different aspects of reading are acquired.

If such influences were identified, this would have implications for educational policy and practice regarding the timeframe for teaching different literacy skills, and could well reinforce the importance of developing pre-literacy skills in early
childhood.

Research aimed at delineating the cortical areas supporting reading is rapidly accumulating. The most comprehensive and well-supported model of reading to date is the “dual route” theory (Jobard, Crivello and Tzourio-Mazoyer, 2003).

"Understanding the Brain", The Birth of a Learning Science, 2007, page 87