Marianne Wolfe
speaker
33 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 14 May
Marianne Wolfe’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
We think of language as natural, and reading is written language, so it must be natural.
But it isn't.
It isn't natural at all.
It's a beautiful example of how the brain's circuit works
reflects the requirements of Chinese, which inevitably means more visual memory and visual processing of those beautifully intricate symbols or characters.
Oh my goodness, probably somewhere between 50 and...
I have a reading life. I learned to bookend my day, which means I begin with a book and I end with a book.
I don't know what it is.
You know, the repercussions of the digital culture are such that we never knew what I considered the... pernicious effects of the kind of efficiency that the digital screen gives us. So the book is the antithesis of the get it done and over with mode. Books have become like vinyl, you know, for though that Emily Dickinson would say for that select society, that shouldn't be the case.
So, Sean, I'm going to answer in two modes. I'm going to answer as a cognitive neuroscientist who studies the reading brain. Okay. And I'm going to answer as a former English literature major. So I'm going to first start with the cognitive neuroscience. The reality is that no one on this earth was meant to read. The brain had to build up a new circuit.
And that new circuit connects all these amazing parts of the brain, cognition, language, perception, memory, but also feeling, affect. So we build this circuitry. And then over time, we actually have the capacity to elaborate it. It becomes ever more sophisticated.
And when it becomes sophisticated, it begins to have a circuit I call the circuit for deep reading and figuring out how the new information meets or does not meet the information stored already. Most important to me are the three big deep reading processes. Empathy.
Sean, it takes time, but the brain connects the ability to leave, really leave the page and enter the lives and thoughts and feelings of others who are completely different. Whether it's a completely different historical epoch or a different culture, religion, etc. You are entering that life. That's empathy. Next and probably never more important than this moment is critical analysis.
We have a frontal lobe dance in which we say, ah, this is what is meant. Oh, no, I refute this because it's not true. So we have this evaluation process, but it takes time. And the end is a real sense, whether it's true or not. misinformation, or worst of all, especially these days, intentional disinformation.
Now, the third deep reading process is one that doesn't always happen, and that's this almost like sanctuary feeling of being so immersed that, and this is where the novelist Proust comes in in my work, he said, the heart of reading is when we enter the wisdom of the author and go beyond it to discover our own wisdom, our own insights, our own best thoughts.
Most of the people who are not reading books aren't reading at that level. But from my perspective as an English literature major, they're not just skimming the information and getting just the gist. They're skimming the opportunity to enter another life.
So every single time I'm asked this question.
Oh, for sure.
No, you ask it because, and I have answered it, because it is on the top of everyone's mind. I love audiobooks, and I especially like them for commuting or for, and I work with a lot of individuals with dyslexia. That's one of the best ways they can get information. Now, is it the same as reading at the immersive level? For some, it is. But by and large, it does skip what is called reading.
Comprehension monitoring. That's when we're reading and we are actually checking ourselves, checking what we have missed, what we have skipped. And in the audio version, by and large, we don't go back.
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