The neuroscientists Michael Posner and Marcus Raichle, and Raichle’s research group at Washington University, conducted a pioneering series of brain imaging studies to observe what the brain does when we look at a continuum of symbol-like characters with and without meaning. Their range of tasks included meaningless symbols, meaningful symbols that make up real letters, meaningless words, and meaningful words. Although clearly designed for other purposes, these studies provide a remarkable glimpse of what happens when the brain encounters ever more abstract and demanding writing
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