Tzeng, O. J. 1, 2
1 Brain and Language Laboratory, Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica
2 Laboratories for Cognitive Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, Taiwan
One important aspect of learning to read a printed text, in which a series of graphic symbols are arranged to represent the key features of the corresponding spoken language, is learning to move the eyes to search for relevant information from the text. The question is what information is available in the prints that would help the readers to accomplish the act of successful reading. Physically, there is the graphic information and its spatial layout. Linguistically, there is phonetic information embedded in the script/speech mapping relationship and morphological information which characterizes the meaning components in the prints. More importantly, there is orthographic information which prescribes the transitional probability from graphic component to the next within a character (letter) and/or transitional probability from one character (letter) to the next within a word. Results in our laboratories clearly demonstrate that an educated reader picks up graphic, phonological, morphological, and semantic information, supported by a language-based short-term memory, in early processing. Since no word boundary is provided in a Chinese text, because all printed characters are spaced equally, examining how to gather “word”-related information parafoveally during eye-fixation in order to facilitate subsequent reading in a Chinese text would shed light for how the reading circuit is organized within the brain. Important progress has been made over the past three decades. Three sets of experimental data related to the neurophysiological processes have been generated under different kinds of experimental paradigms and with different types of brain imaging techniques. Are they consistent, compatible, confirmatory, complimentary, or in conflict among one another, with respect to their implied underlying cognitive neuropsychological processes? A conspiracy theory of reading, based upon both the affordance theory and the orthographic equilibrium hypothesis, is proposed to map the cerebral-reading circuit based upon data generated from the educated eyes to the educated brain.