Reading by Design: Evolutionary Psychology and the Neuropsychology of Reading

Abstract

A large body of evidence exists which points to the existence of a neural substrate dedicated to reading: (a) neuroimaging (and other) studies which have identified neural regions activated in reading by normal Ss; (b) similar studies on individuals with reading disabilities that show inactivity in those regions; (c) cases of hyperlexia in which preschool children have well-developed word recognition abilities, far beyond their reading comprehension; (d) persons born blind who activate the same neural regions during braille reading as sighted readers do with visual text; (e) similarities between the neuropsychology of language and of reading; and (f) other, similar neural regions which process information that has greater adaptive significance (e.g., an object recognition substrate). Naturalistic evolution would predict there would be no neural tissue dedicated to reading. So this body of research raises questions about the ability of evolution to account for this psychological phenomenon, creates a significant problem for evolutionary psychology's theoretical commitment to modularity, and provides an example of psychological evidence that points to intelligent design.