The (In)Tense Space Between Synthesis and Interpretation in Reading Events

Interpretation is hard. Synthesis can be exciting, creative, energizing. Exploring counterfactuals, finding a unique way to apply, discussing key ideas with peers, presenting on panels with smart stuff to say, writing a brilliant paper, you name it. Then the time arrives when something done is either good enough or not. It makes a point or it doesn’t. Good interpretations are not a dime a dozen.

Why do so many people abandon the habit of reading once free from schooling? I think it could have antecedents in the issue of evaluation when texts are part of the assignment. Evaluation for a reader means constantly looking over your shoulder, forever wondering whether you have it right, whether you recall the right words. People may stop reading because they can’t shake that mindset. If you don’t believe me, check here and here.

“ …many individuals…have succeeded at reading throughout their lives, and simply choose not to read. Scott (1996) defined aliteracy as ‘a lack of reading habit especially in capable readers who choose not to read’ (Nathanson, Pruslow, and Levitt, 2008, p. 314). ‘Aliterates typically suffer from a lack of engagement or intrinsic motivation to read, even when they are capable of successfully comprehending material’ (Asselin, as cited in Nathanson, Pruslow, & Levitt, 2008, p. 314). If children spend their early years disinterested in reading…, how likely are they to grow into successful adults who set aside time to engage in reading for pure enjoyment?” (Annable, 2017)

The past few decades of research in neurocognitive science provide a basis for stretching the scope of Annable’s (2017) observation. According to what is known about the brain, “reading for pure enjoyment” might not just make you happy, but improve the quality of your life. Yes, reading may be a key to wisdom. Who would have thought? Whether reading for joy or for quality of life, to the degree external evaluation threatens to intimidate you, to that degree you are constrained.

According to Cabeza et al. (2001)¹, a variety of integrated cognitive tasks prompted by reading and researched using imaging techniques appear to stimulate large areas of the brain all at once and integrate the flow of thinking across brain domains to achieve peak levels of consciousness represented by metacognition or self-awareness. That’s quite a jolt. A brain orgasm. This study claims to break new ground, which is now way old, in that it looked at multiple cognitive functions in interaction. Studies until 2001, according to the source, looked at single functions like, say, decoding words.

Doing its usual job of handling incoming visual sensations and data from tracking lines of text, working memory makes bundles of provisional textual meaning by way of the learned cueing systems sending perceptions of print to Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas for language processing during silent reading to activate stores of meaning. During reading, words activate meanings activate words activate meanings activate… Even these long-known areas in the brain have developed shifting nuanced meanings in the literature well beyond my ken, but that they work together in sync is beyond dispute. Integration here is on a micro-level. Note that this diagram refers to speech, not reading:

I’d love to see a diagram that isolates phoneme sensation from perception. Sensations are raw data, meaningless until they are perceived, unless I’ve misunderstood Suzi. Somewhere between sensation of noises and perception as phonemes is a learned allophonic analyzer. And then acceptable phonemes must be blended into syllables and/or morphemes…

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Rather than study a single function, the focal research for this post (Cabeza, 2001) was interested in larger views of brain integration. Working memory allows a reader to follow the train of thought embedded in the text on the fly and to fix up suspected patches of understanding during the act.

Simultaneously, episodic memory—where meanings created from experience in real life are stored—kicks in relevant prior knowledge and experience to build a situated mental representation of the text as the reader read it. Information is extracted from the outside via text, from the inside via episodic memory, and the whole brain makes sense of it under the watchful eye of the metacognimonitor.

While Cabeza’s study does not directly look at the reading process, its findings on the neural correlates of episodic retrieval (ER) and working memory (WM) have implications for understanding how we read. Note that by read I mean the ordinary understanding of reading as a visual process—read a book, read a poem, read the paper, read a blog post, read a textbook, etc.

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The following topics struck me as significant for purposes of exploring reading pedagogy as I worked through the materials for this post. I’m not an expert. I’m a novice when it comes to brain research, but I’ve been reading and studying a remarkably gifted writer on the topic of consciousness named Suzi Travis. I’m not even confident that I could name the brain regions yet. I will achieve mastery:) But I’m confident that the big picture here is at least moderately accurate—please, please correct me or contribute clarifications in the comments.

Working memory in reading provides a space in consciousness for processing interactions between print and memory, yielding provisional understandings. Episodic memory in reading is the source of personal associations, prior knowledge, genre knowledge, etc., retrieved as input to working memory. Long Term Memory in Reading refers to the entire organized library of experiences, images, concepts, and information we have inside our consciousness. Attention and Executive Functions are central to making everything work together.

Working Memory in Reading: The study highlights the importance of working memory areas, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. This cortex is the protagonist on the reading stage, exerting the highest level of control on cognition throughout the brain, a cognitive President. During reading, working memory is crucial for holding and manipulating information from the text. The left posterior/ventral PFC (Broca's area) activation in WM tasks could be relevant to phonological processing in reading, especially for sounding out words, according to this older study. Note that the evidence of relevance to sounding out words has no direct relevance to any specific pedagogical perspective on phonics.

Episodic Memory in Reading Comprehension: Episodic memory retrieval is important for connecting new information extracted from text to prior knowledge and experiences. The anterior and ventrolateral PFC activations associated with ER, all explained in detail in the study, are involved when readers link text content to their personal memories or to previously read information. Maintaining a distinction between personal memory and textual information followed by integrating the two in an act of epistemology or imaginative recreation of a world is remarkable.

Long Term Memory in Reading: Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL) Involvement: The finding that MTL, including the hippocampus, is involved in both long-term and short-term memory processes suggests it might play a role in integrating immediate-level textual information with stored knowledge during reading comprehension. Considered to be an important structure for declarative memory, its key element is the hippocampus. Where the prefrontal cortex serves as the seat of self-governance and expression, the hippocampus does the magic of managing short and long-term memory.

This fact can be proven by the observation, according to sources, that even partial damage of the structure leads to severe and permanent memory impairment. However, there are cortical areas surrounding the hippocampus, like parahippocampal, entorhinal and perirhinal cortices, which are not only anatomically, but also functionally related to the hippocampus and are also involved in memory processes.

I say all of this not to impress you. Please don’t ask me to hold forth on these topics. My point is to illustrate that neurons lighting up in a loop when people sound out words is evidence that something is happening right now right there. But it says little about pedagogy. Today neuroscientists describe a brain on reading as fireworks.

Attention and Executive Functions: The common dorsolateral PFC activation in both ER and WM tasks, attributed to monitoring operations, could be relevant to executive functions in reading, such as focusing attention and integrating information across sentences. Interestingly enough, one source found that “…although the number of well-controlled studies on DLPFC language functions is still limited, the DLPFC might be an important target region for the treatment of pragmatic language disorders.”

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Imagine the impact of a steady drumbeat of evaluation of your interpretation of your readings. We have all of these brain areas waiting to be stimulated by text. Yet we have a population of disengaged adults who know not what they are missing. In addition, as people age, reading is a safe and sane way to exercise this organ and keep it operating at high levels, maybe surpassing in wisdom what is perhaps not quite as sharp.

1. NeuroImage 16, 317–330 (2002)

doi:10.1006/nimg.2002.1063, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com