Slides about the psychology of reading

1. READING:
THE FIRST MASS
MEDIA
Lecture 5.1

2. A Brief History of the Written
Word
◦Literacy emerged as early as 8,000
BCE
◦Mesopotamia
◦Egypt
◦China
◦Mesoamerica
◦Literacy was driven by societal
complexity

3. As Time Passed…
◦Literacy and reading rates have changed
over time and place
◦ It is believed that a large portion of romans could
read
◦Reading was often a skill of the elite
◦ Often dealt with complex societal systems
◦ Requires institutional knowledge and record
keeping

4. The State of
Literacy Today
◦ Currently adult literacy is
around 82%
◦ North America, Europe, and
Central Asia ~100%
◦ East Asia, Pacific, Latin America,
Caribbean ~90+%
◦ Arab States ~80%
◦ South and West Asia ~70%
◦ Sub-Saharan Africa ~60%

5. English as a Language
◦ English is classified as
◦ Indo-European – Germanic – West Germanic – Anglo-Frisian
◦ Four major transitions
◦ Old English (~500 CE)
◦ Addition of Old Norse and Norman French
◦ Middle English (~800-1200 CE)
◦ Early Modern English (1500-1700 CE)
◦ Modern English (1700+ CE)

6. Examples of
Old / Middle /
and Early
Modern
English
◦ Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga /
þrym ge frunon...
◦ "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have
heard of the glory of the folk-kings...“ Beowulf
◦ Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng
þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and
Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond,
◦ “Although, from the beginning, Englishmen had three
manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands
speech in the middle of the country, “ John of Trevisa
◦ The Tragedie of Gorbodvc, whereof three Actes
were wrytten by Thomas Nortone, and the two
laste by Thomas Sackuyle. Sett forthe as the
same was shewed before the Qvenes most
excellent Maiestie

7. English Around the World
◦English is considered to be the first global
Lingua Franca
◦A trade language used by people who speak
different languages in order to communicate

8. THE
WRITTEN
WORD
Lecture 5.2

9. What are we Reading
◦Logographic
◦Syllabic
◦Abjad
◦Abugida
◦Alphabet
◦Featural

10. The Evolution of the Latin Alphabet
◦Etruscan
◦𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀 𐌀
◦Latin
◦A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X
◦Old English
◦ A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z & Ƿ Þ Ð Æ Ȝ œ ſ
◦Modern English
◦A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

11. Studying Language and
Words
◦Psycholinguistics
◦Neurolinguistics
◦Psychology of Language and
Reading
◦School Psychology

12. The Bottom Up
Approach
◦Identify letter features
◦Link features to letters
◦Combine letters into patterns
◦Link patterns into words
◦Link meaning to words
◦Combine words into sentences
◦…Then paragraphs
◦…Then texts

13. Top Down Approach
◦ People are involved with the reading process, rather
than just absorbing what is given to them.
◦ Constant prediction and confirmation of text
◦ A top down perspective suggests that we…
◦ Process blocks of writing instead of individual letters and words
◦ Utilize context to get the meaning instead of completely reading
◦ Read for meaning
◦ Fitting information into schema and using schema to
process information

14. Interactive Approach
◦Levels of Processing
◦Symbolic
◦Phonemic
◦Lexical
◦Syntactic
◦Semantic
◦Pragmatic

15. The Jumbled Word Email
◦Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it
deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at
the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can
sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn
mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as
a wlohe.

16. A Ltlite Bit Haedrr
◦ Ehppininere is szsiheentyd in the mledlua of the aanerdl gnlad in an eizmynatc phtaway
taht ctnrvoes the anmio aicd tyionsre itno a sirees of itetemieandrs and, uillatemty,
eiirpnhnpee. Tyrisone is frsit oizdexid to L-DPOA, whcih is stbqnuelsuey dtercaxboleayd
to gvie doinapme. Ooaxditin gvies nrpeipnniohree. The fianl setp in eihrnineppe
bihtsnyeisos is the mihotatyeln of the prmiray amnie of nepreihnoripne. Tihs reaciton is
ctyazaeld by the eymnze pyahmnintnholleaee N-msnayeflthrrasete (PMNT) which
uetiizls S-aesoyndl mtiohenine (SMAe) as the mheytl dnoor. While PMNT is funod
pramilriy in the ctoyosl of the eidcrnone cells of the aendarl meullda (aslo knwon as
cifhmforan clels), it has been decteetd at low levels in btoh the haret and biran

17. Why One is Easier than the Other
◦ Many short words, with few possible alterations
◦ Simple and/or more common words
◦ Function words tend to be the same or similar (a, the, to, as, etc)
◦ Even if they are different we tend not to notice mistakes anyway
◦ This helps preserve grammar and sentence structure
◦ Jumbles do not form actual words or morphemes
◦ Salt and Slat
◦ Easy jumbles tend to maintain the overall sound of the word
◦ Toatl vs ttaol

18. THE STUDY
OF
READING
Lecture 5.3

19. Writing and Thought
◦Our Culture shapes our language, and our
language shapes our cognitions
◦We cannot think of things we do not have words to
describe
Culture Language Cognition

20. Lets Talk about the
Piraha
◦ The Piraha do not have words for numbers,
time, extended family, or colors
◦ They cannot differentiate between any number of objects
more than 2 or do any numerical operations in their head
◦ They do not plan beyond the immediate future and have
trouble predicting possible actions
◦ They have no cultural memory past one or two
generations

21. Language
and
Cognitions
◦ Gendered Languages
◦ Greater emphasis on gender roles than
non-gendered languages
◦ Non-Tense languages
◦ Native speakers of languages without
future tense show better decision making
◦ No separation of the now and future,
means no putting off of consequences

22. Studying the way
we Read
◦Behavioral
◦Cognitive
◦Physiological
◦Neurological

23. Reading Behavior
◦When and where do you like
to read?
◦Time, Location, Etc.
◦Reward for reading?
◦Implicit or Explicit?
◦Subvocalization

24. Cognitive Reading
◦Orthographic
◦What does the word look like
◦Includes font, letters, shape, and style
◦Phonemic
◦What does it sound like
◦Semantic
◦What does it mean
◦Pragmatics
◦The Word in Context

25. Physiological
Reading
◦ Eye tracking
◦ Does not rely on
self report
◦ Shows where the
eye moves across
the page and how
fast

26. Brain and The
Reading Process
◦ When reading, various parts of the brain activate
◦ Visual areas of the brain process the images
◦ Wernike’s area helps process the language and
meaning
◦ Meaning is stored in the cortex
◦ Syntax and phonological information is held in
the frontal lobe
◦ Visualizing character action and speech activates the
same areas as if you were watching it in real life

27. CONTENT
ANALYSIS
Lecture 5.4

28. Traditional View of
Reading a Text
◦The reader is passive
◦Modern interpretation
◦Active
◦Metacognitive

29. Does Medium
Matter?
◦Was the book or movie
better?
◦Adaptions to film are
considered a Dialogic
processes
◦ Adaptations are influenced and
influence the novels they come
from

30. Differences
Between
Mediums
◦Written works lack external
information
◦ Sights, sounds, etc.
◦ It must be filled in by the reader
◦Abundance of Internal
information
◦ Thoughts, feelings, memories, etc.

31. Studying the Text Itself
◦Content Analysis
◦An process to
interpret and code a
body of text

32. Conducting a Content
Analysis
◦Follow the following steps
1. Decide on the phenomenon or concept
2. Decide on the media to use
3. Define the categories
4. Decide what level of sampling
5. Create coding scheme or use previous

33. Methodology
◦Manual Coding
◦Computer Assisted
◦Computed Generated

34. Important Decisions
For Text Analysis
◦What words falls into each
category?
◦ Common Categories
◦ Specialty
◦ Theoretical
◦Frequency or Ratings?

35. Objectification in popular music
Flynn, Craig, Anderson, Holody (2016)
◦Texts : Top 20 Billboard songs from
2009-2013
◦ Rap, Country, Adult Contemporary, Rock, R&B /
Hip-Hop, Pop
◦Concepts: Objectification
◦Categories
◦ Body Objectification
◦ Female / Male Gaze
◦ Attractiveness

36. Other Types
of Content
Analysis
◦Semiotic Analysis
◦ Study and analysis of signs and meanings
◦Semantic Network
◦ Individual components are seen as an
interconnected network
◦Part of Speech
◦ Focuses on what type of words are used
◦ What is being communicated (Nouns, verbs,
adjectives)
◦ How it is being communicated (pronouns,
prepositions, articles, conjunctions)

37. Symbol analysis during
World War II
Laswell, et al (1949)
◦ Newspaper content was studied to count the
appearance of certain symbols for different
concepts such as Jewish, communist,
democracy, Russian
◦ Affective dimension (indulgent, supportive,
neutral, hostile)
◦ Meaning dimension (strength, goodness,
morality, weakness, immorality, etc)

38. QUALITATIVE
ANALYSIS
Lecture 5.5

39. Qualitative Analysis:
Phenomenological
◦ Approaching a piece of media with a
subjective view, focusing on the individual
experience it entails as an example of a
phenomenon
◦ Organizing material in meaning units
◦ Reflect upon each meaning unit (what does it reveal,
how does it relate to others)
◦ Summarize and create structure
◦ Find Themes
◦ Extrapolate general features of phenomenon

40. Qualitative
Analysis:
Discourse
Analysis
◦Similar in technique to
Phenomenological Analysis:
◦ Focuses on the discourse as a
meaningful part of the idea
◦ How and why the text was collected
◦ Do not focuses on the prior ideas, just
the current example of media
◦ Looks at pattern of speech and other
structures

41. Qualitative Analysis: Grounded Analysis
◦Similar in technique to Phenomenological analysis
◦Differs from phenomenological analysis:
◦ Focuses on theory construction and inductive knowledge
◦ Attempts to code data based on theories
◦ Isolates parts of the experience
◦ Creates models

42. Qualitative Analysis : Narrative analysis
◦Similar Technique to phenomenological analysis:
◦ Focuses mostly on the idea of a story
◦ Draw upon philosophy, literary, and social traditions(i.e. feminism)
◦ More interpretative
◦ Generally avoids extrapolation beyond the subject
◦ Analyzing word meanings and etymology of word choices

43. Qualitative Analysis :
Intuitive inquiry
◦Same technique as
phenomenological analysis:
◦ Content must be personally significant to
the researcher
◦ More free ranging ways of interpretation,
dreams, art, reverie, spirituality,
meditation, etc.
◦ Specific goal of practical outcome or
transformation