One problem of evolutionary explanations of psychology is that it is difficult for them to explain behaviors that are fairly recent in our history, such as reading. The ability of reading is problematic, as there are neural systems in the brain that are specialized on reading, yet the ability that has only existed for a few thousand years that it cannot have evolved. For example, the brain has an area that is specialized on recognizing words and letters.
There are of course many possible explanations, such as the plasticity of our brain or that evolution can occur faster than previously thought, but an alternative theory by the neurologist Stanislas Dehaene is that reading uses an old visual system that has been developed through evolution. It is believed that this old visual system previously specialized on recognizing natural shapes in the nature (this has been found after research on macaque monkeys). For instance, a tree has an I- or Y-shape, a snake an S-shape, an eye an O-shape, a valley a V-shape, etcetera. These natural shapes then formed the basis of ancient alphabets, which is the reason why alphabets from different languages share some features.
3 Comments
New
6/15/2011 01:40:51 pm
Another interesting evolutionary explanation of things. I think that the traditional chinese alphabets can be the perfect example for this explanation since each letter substitutes for one complete word. Unlike other languages where a word has the be spelt with more than one. I know that the word "human" has familiar features with a human body. But i still don't get it as to why you would call it a paradox. Is it because humans shouldn't develop reading abilities as early as it actually happened?
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Mr Hansson
6/21/2011 06:51:13 pm
New, I took the title from the Swedish article I had read. They call it a paradox because, as you said, there is an evolved ability for reading in the brain, but it is not possible because humans have only known how to read for a few thousand years (too short for evolution to occur). But now they think that it is an older evolved function that we are reusing.
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New
6/22/2011 03:13:14 am
Ohh. Thanks for the clarification :)
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AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
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