I always want to finish things quickly. The 15-second short videos on Douyin now feel long.
We are constantly reading. Copywriting in short videos, messages in WeChat groups, articles in official accounts, government work reports, and so on.
When we see a piece of text, we can decode their meaning based on the arrangement of words. So what exactly happens in our brains when we see a series of texts and derive information from them?
Our brain structure was probably formed around 2 million years ago. As evolutionary psychologists say, although we live in the 21st century, our brains are still from the Stone Age. Fortunately, our brains are plastic and can adapt differently according to the environment.
During the reading process, the brain involves which systems, namely, the visual system, speech system, and motor system.
First, the visual system captures the text we are reading and then breaks it down into smaller linguistic units.
Then the speech system matches the smallest units with "phonetic matching" and "rapid naming." Phonetic matching, in other words, is converting the text symbol into speech. Rapid naming is like looking up a word in a dictionary, except that we are checking our memory dictionary in our minds to see if it matches the smallest linguistic unit. For example, when we see the character "火" (fire), we will quickly name it as "on fire," "flame," and so on, ultimately selecting the most appropriate semantic meaning from many vocabulary words.
Finally, the motor system, which includes a wide range of activities, mainly involves gross movements such as sitting, lying down, running, jumping, as well as fine movements like eating, writing, and reading. How does the motor system work in reading? The book explains that the motor system mainly involves the fine movements we make during handwriting practice. In reading science, this is called "orthography." For example, when the character "吴" (Wu) has "天" (sky) on top, we can recognize it, which relies on the fine motor movements we make when writing.
Before reading this book, I never thought about it so deeply. I couldn't help but write these notes after reading 25 pages. Everything can be explained scientifically, and our brains will unconsciously use various scientific methods to serve us.