http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-Future-of-Reading-tp5513198p5513952.html
>
> This post from Jonah Lehrer at Wired discusses the different
> processing systems our brains use to read print and screen versions
> of text, and offers choices for format, given how we want to
> interact with the text, or have our readers interact.
> Lehrer has written two books on neuroscience:
> How We Decide, and Proust was a Neuroscientist.
> The Future Of Reading | Wired Science | Wired.com
>
> The Future Of Reading
> By Jonah Lehrer September 8, 2010 | 10:59 pm | Categories:
> Frontal Cortex
> I think it’s pretty clear that the future of books is digital. I’m
> sure we’ll always have deckle-edge hardcovers and mass market
> paperbacks, but I imagine the physical version of books will soon
> assume a cultural place analogous to that of FM radio. Although the
> radio is always there (and isn’t that nice?), I really only use it
> when I’m stuck in a rental car and forgot my auxilliary input cord.
> The rest of the time I’m relying on shuffle and podcasts.
>
> I love books deeply. I won’t bore you with descriptions of my love
> other than to say that, when I moved back from England, I packed 9
> pounds of clothes and 45 pounds of books. (I have a weakness for
> British covers.) And when my luggage was over the fifty pound
> airline limit, I started chucking T-shirts.
>
> So I’m nervous about the rise of the Kindle and the Nook and the
> iBookstore. The book, after all, is a time-tested technology. We
> know that it can endure, and that the information we encode in
> volutes of ink on pulped trees can last for centuries. That’s why we
> still have Shakespeare Folios and why I can buy a 150 year old book
> on Alibris for 99 cents. There are so many old books!
>
> And yet, I also recognize the astonishing potential of digital texts
> and e-readers. For me, the most salient fact is this: It’s never
> been easier to buy books, read books, or read about books you might
> want to buy. How can that not be good?
>
> That said, I do have a nagging problem with the merger of screens
> and sentences. My problem is that consumer technology moves in a
> single direction: It’s constantly making it easier for us to
> perceive the content. This is why your TV is so high-def, and your
> computer monitor is so bright and clear. For the most part, this
> technological progress is all to the good. (I still can’t believe
> that people watched golf before there were HD screens. Was the ball
> even visible? For me, the pleasure of televised golf is all about
> the lush clarity of grass.) Nevertheless, I worry that this same
> impulse – making content easier and easier to see – could actually
> backfire with books. We will trade away understanding for
> perception. The words will shimmer on the screen, but the sentences
> will be quickly forgotten.
>
> Let me explain. Stanislas Dehaene, a neuroscientist at the College
> de France in Paris, has helped illuminate the neural anatomy of
> reading. It turns out that the literate brain contains two distinct
> pathways for making sense of words, which are activated in different
> contexts. One pathway is known as the ventral route, and it’s direct
> and efficient, accounting for the vast majority of our reading. The
> process goes like this: We see a group of letters, convert those
> letters into a word, and then directly grasp the word’s semantic
> meaning. According to Dehaene, this ventral pathway is turned on by
> “routinized, familiar passages” of prose, and relies on a bit of
> cortex known as visual word form area (VWFA). When you are a reading
> a straightforward sentence, or a paragraph full of tropes and
> cliches, you’re almost certainly relying on this ventral neural
> highway. As a result, the act of reading seems effortless and easy.
> We don’t have to think about the words on the page.
>
> But the ventral route is not the only way to read. The second
> reading pathway – it’s known as the dorsal stream – is turned on
> whenever we’re forced to pay conscious attention to a sentence,
> perhaps because of an obscure word, or an awkward subclause, or bad
> handwriting. (In his experiments, Dehaene activates this pathway in
> a variety of ways, such as rotating the letters or filling the prose
> with errant punctuation.) Although scientists had previously assumed
> that the dorsal route ceased to be active once we became literate,
> Deheane’s research demonstrates that even fluent adults are still
> forced to occasionally make sense of texts. We’re suddenly conscious
> of the words on the page; the automatic act has lost its
> automaticity.
>
> This suggests that the act of reading observes a gradient of
> awareness. Familiar sentences printed in Helvetica and rendered on
> lucid e-ink screens are read quickly and effortlessly. Meanwhile,
> unusual sentences with complex clauses and smudged ink tend to
> require more conscious effort, which leads to more activation in the
> dorsal pathway. All the extra work – the slight cognitive frisson of
> having to decipher the words – wakes us up.
>
> So here’s my wish for e-readers. I’d love them to include a feature
> that allows us to undo their ease, to make the act of reading just a
> little bit more difficult. Perhaps we need to alter the fonts, or
> reduce the contrast, or invert the monochrome color scheme. Our eyes
> will need to struggle, and we’ll certainly read slower, but that’s
> the point: Only then will we process the text a little less
> unconsciously, with less reliance on the dorsal pathway. We won’t
> just scan the words – we will contemplate their meaning.
>
> My larger anxiety has to do with the sprawling influence of
> technology. Sooner or later, every medium starts to influence the
> message. I worry that, before long, we’ll become so used to the
> mindless clarity of e-ink – to these screens that keep on getting
> better – that the technology will feedback onto the content, making
> us less willing to endure harder texts. We’ll forget what it’s like
> to flex those ventral muscles, to consciously decipher a literate
> clause. And that would be a shame, because not every sentence should
> be easy to read.
>
> Bonus point: I sometimes wonder why I’m only able to edit my own
> writing after it has been printed out, in 3-D form. My prose will
> always look so flawless on the screen, but then I read the same
> words on the physical page and I suddenly see all my clichés and
> banalities and excesses. Why is this the case? Why do I only notice
> my mistakes after they’re printed on dead trees? I think the same
> ventral/dorsal explanation applies. I’m so used to seeing my words
> on the screen – after all, I wrote them on the screen – that seeing
> them in a slightly different form provides enough tension to awake
> my ventral stream, restoring a touch of awareness to the process of
> reading. And that’s when I get out my red pen.
>
> Bonus bonus point: Perhaps the pleasure of reading on my Kindle –
> it’s so light in the hand, with such nicely rendered fonts –
> explains why it has quickly become an essential part of my sleep
> routine. The fact that it’s easier to read might explain why it’s
> also easier for me to fall asleep.
>
>
>
> Read More
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/frontal-cortex#ixzz0z0Dm3O8X> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College