Lecture
At the present time, reading is regarded as one of the higher intellectual functions, as a purposeful activity that can change views, deepen understanding, recreate experience, influence behavior, and perfect the personality.
Reading is a complex mental process and, above all, a process of the semantic perception of written speech, of its understanding. The complexity of this process is due, above all, to its heterogeneity: on the one hand, reading is a process of direct sensory cognition, and on the other, it represents a mediated reflection of reality. Reading cannot be regarded as a simple action; it is a complex activity, including such higher mental functions as semantic perception and attention, memory and thinking
Reading is also regarded as one of the forms of written speech, which represents a process largely the opposite of the process of writing. Writing, like oral utterance, transforms a compressed thought into expanded speech by special means. Writing begins with the motive that prompts the subject to formulate the utterance in written speech, and continues with the emergence of the general scheme, the plan of the utterance, or the intention, which is formed in inner speech and does not yet have a pronounced verbal character. In carrying out its generative function, inner speech transforms the compressed intention into a system of written speech. At the same time, writing has much in common with the process of reading. Like writing, reading is an analytic-synthetic process, including the phonetic analysis and synthesis of the elements of speech, although this element of reading can in many cases be eliminated.
Analytic-synthetic reading manifests itself especially clearly at the early stages of its development in the child, who analyzes the letters, converts them into sounds, combines them into syllables, and synthesizes the word from the syllables. At later stages of the formation of reading, however, this process has a different, more complex character. An experienced reader, as studies of eye movement have shown, does not subject all the elements of a word to analysis and synthesis; he merely grasps a limited complex of letters carrying the main information (most often the root part of the word), and from this sound-letter complex reconstructs the meaning of the whole word. In order to achieve a correct understanding of the word perceived in reading, the reader often returns to the written word and checks the "hypothesis" that has arisen against the actual word. In reading sufficiently familiar words, the most well-established in past experience (surname, first name, the city in which the person lives, common names of objects, etc.), this process of checking the hypothesis against the word actually written, i.e., returning to letter-by-letter analysis, becomes superfluous, and the reader recognizes the word at once. Here, in all likelihood, successive perception is replaced by simultaneous perception. If the written word is more complex in its structure (for example, shipwreck, presage, etc.), or if the complex of letters already singled out does not yet provide grounds for an unambiguous reading of the word (cf.: раcпоряжение (directive) can be read as расположение (arrangement), etc.), then the reader returns to the word read, checks the hypothesis that initially arose against the actual spelling, and only then decodes the meaning of the word.
Such a reading strategy, consisting of running ahead (anticipation) and returning back (comparison, control), is ensured by a complex act of eye movement. It is known that restricting the freedom of eye movement backward and forward along the text disrupts the reading process at all stages of its development (T. G. Egorov, 1952, et al.). Eye movements as a necessary component of the reading process were already investigated in the works of authors of the early period (A. V. Troshin, K. Miller, et al.). These scholars established that during reading there is a regular alternation of pauses and eye movements, and that the optical perception of the signs being read occurs at the moment of fixation of the eye, not during its movement. They also established that the unit of reading is the word, not the letter.
This line of research received further development in the works of T. G. Egorov, L. I. Rumyantseva (1953), et al., who studied eye movement during reading in detail and paid special attention to studying the regressive eye movements and their significance for reading. It was established that the absence of the possibility for the eye to return backward along the line significantly slows down the reading process, increases the number of errors, but even greater difficulties arise when the forward movement of the eye along the line is inhibited, since these movements ensure the so-called "anticipatory reading" or "prediction zone". These authors also believe that reading occurs at the moment of eye fixations (the "recognition zone") and that the unit of reading is the word, with the letters serving as landmarks within it. In the process of fluent reading, the eye does not perceive all the letters, but only some of them, carrying the greatest information about the word. These letters have been given the name dominant letters.
Thus, these authors arrive at the conclusion that eye movements are one of the necessary conditions for carrying out reading, but only a condition. As for the immediate structure of the reading process, it is characterized by the interaction of at least two levels — the sensorimotor and the semantic, which are in complex unity. The sensorimotor level, in turn, consists of several closely interrelated links: a) sound-letter analysis, b) retention of the information received, c) semantic guesses arising on the basis of this information, d) comparison, i.e., verification of the hypotheses that arise against the given material. The sensorimotor level provides, as it were, the "technique" of reading — the speed of perception and its accuracy. The semantic level, on the basis of the data of the sensorimotor level, leads to an understanding of the meaning and sense of the information. It is the complex interaction, the unity of these levels, that ensures reading both in terms of the speed and accuracy of perceiving the signs and in terms of an adequate understanding of the meaning carried by these signs. In the formation of reading in children, the visual perception of letter signs — separately or in a word — is necessarily accompanied by vocalization aloud, i.e., by the conversion of the visual lexeme into its sound and kinesthetic analogue. Accurate, error-free perception is the basic condition for the correct understanding of what is read.
From the very outset, reading is subordinated to its principal task — understanding the written message. Therefore, the development of the understanding of what is read in the course of the formation of reading in children proceeds in close connection with the development of the process of perception. At the very beginning of the formation of reading, understanding does not proceed together with perception, but follows it; it is possible only on the basis of a prolonged analysis and synthesis of the words being read. Gradually, as the skill of reading develops and becomes automatized, understanding begins to outstrip the process of perception, and it manifests itself in the emergence of semantic guesses, guesses at the sense, within the bounds of individual words. At the later stages of the formation of reading, the task of understanding the messages being read is already solved by grasping the sense of whole words and sentences. Here reading relies on anticipating the further thought, relating no longer to a word or phrase, but to a whole paragraph or even to the entire text. In an adult, anticipatory reading achieves full perfection. The act of reading here proceeds in complete and indissoluble unity of the processes of perceiving and understanding what is read. By this time, the process of perception has become automatized and provides the conditions for rapid and correct understanding of what is read. Understanding, in turn, begins to exert a strong influence on perception, affecting its speed and accuracy.
Understanding of a word or phrase in reading is ensured not only by the accuracy of perception, but also by the influence of context. This condition, which plays a certain role in reading, was pointed out in the works of several authors (A. V. Troshin, T. G. Egorov, et al.). This question was also studied in the research of A. N. Sokolov, in which the significant role of context in understanding a word, phrase, or paragraph in reading was demonstrated experimentally. Research directly aimed at studying the question of the influence of the context of a word on the process of reading, its speed and accuracy, was carried out by J. Morton. On the basis of extensive experimental material, the author concludes that rapid and adequate understanding in the process of reading occurs owing to a higher degree of context of the words. A high degree of context of the words and full use of contextual guesses lead, in turn, to an increase in reading speed, a decrease in the number of fixations (i.e., the extent and angle of material covered by the eye increase), and to an increase in the accuracy of perception, which finds its expression in a decrease in regressive eye movements. J. Morton suggests that there exists a reading potential that is not fully used by inexperienced readers and that is connected with knowledge of the statistical properties of the language, with the probability of the word. An increase in the probability of the stimulus word can make it more accessible for perception, and this will lead to an increase in reading speed without loss of understanding.
In the modern psychological literature it is customary to distinguish between an "external" and an "internal" context. The "external" is built up on the basis of the influence of the entire text read, while the "internal" is built up on the basis of the paragraph or sentence being read.
Such a complex mental process cannot be carried out on the basis of the work of any single zone of the brain, or of the so-called reading center, as used to be thought. Modern neuropsychology regards the joint work of several areas of the brain (the postfrontal, inferior parietal, temporal, and occipital parts of the cortex of the left hemisphere) as the cerebral basis for the realization of the reading process, each of which makes its own specific contribution. The realization of the reading process requires the preservation and interaction of the visual, acoustic, and kinesthetic analyzers, whose joint work constitutes the psychophysiological basis of the reading process (FOOTNOTE: Fundamentals of the Theory of Speech Activity / Ed. by A. A. Leontiev. M., 1974).
Even this brief analysis allows us to conclude that the psychological structure of the reading process and its connection with the brain are extremely complex. The normal reading process includes at least four interacting components: sound-letter analysis and synthesis, retention of information, semantic guesses, and the process of comparing the "hypotheses" that arise during reading against the written words. All these processes, however, can be carried out only given the presence of complex eye movement, on the one hand, and the preservation of the motives of the activity, on the other. Taking into account the whole complexity of the structure of the reading process and the necessary conditions, it is easy to imagine the whole variety of pictures of reading impairment in brain diseases.
Clinical practice long ago identified several varieties of alexia. Some of them are connected with aphasic disorders, including difficulties in recoding letters into sounds; others are caused by certain disorders of the higher forms of perception and behavior. Therefore, the reading process can be impaired at different links, and the psychological structure of reading impairments in lesions differing in localization can be profoundly different.
On the basis of the qualitative analysis of reading impairment in alexia (in adults and children), developed by A. R. Luria and his pupils, several forms of speech and non-speech (gnostic) alexia have been identified and described. At the basis of each form of alexia lies a factor whose impairment leads to defects of reading. Alexias are divided into different forms depending on the different factors underlying them. In the clinical picture of alexia there are several forms of non-speech reading impairments:
1) optic alexia, arising in lesions of the parieto-occipital and occipital parts of the left hemisphere of the brain; two types of optic alexia are known — literal and verbal;
2) optic-mnestic alexia, connected, at a remove, with speech disorders as well;
3) optic-spatial alexia, the basis of which is defects of spatial perception.
Speech forms of alexia occur within the syndromes of the aphasia forms of the same name. In lesions of the temporal parts of the dominant hemisphere, two forms of alexia arise — sensory and acoustic-mnestic. And lesions of the inferior parietal and postfrontal parts of the left hemisphere of the brain also lead to two forms of motor alexia — afferent and efferent, respectively.
Up to now we have described those forms of alexia in which the first link in the complex structure of reading is impaired — the link that ensures sound-letter analysis. In one case it is impaired because of defects in optical perception, in another — because of an impairment of acoustic analysis and synthesis, in a third case sound-letter analysis during reading proves defective because of a pathology of the dynamics of speech processes, and in a fourth — because of defects in the kinesthetic link.
We have also described a specific form of alexia, arising on the basis of an impairment of the span of perception and of auditory-verbal memory, i.e., of another link, the semantic one, in the structure of reading. This form of alexia manifests itself in the syndrome of acoustic-mnestic aphasia. In all these cases, the activity is not impaired in terms of its purposefulness, the control functions (in terms of the need for it), and the semantic guesses (when they can arise) are adequate, i.e., reading as a behavioral act proves to be unimpaired here.
The data of our study showed that reading can turn out to be impaired even when the sound-letter link in its structure remains intact, but the links ensuring the emergence of adequate semantic guesses and of control are impaired. Impairment of reading of this kind could often be caused by lesions of the frontal systems of the brain, which, as is known, ensure motivation, general organization, programming, and regulation of the course of mental processes.
In this form of alexia, the executive side of reading remains intact, while a higher level of reading — the level of understanding — proves to be impaired. The central defect here may be either instability of attention or an impairment of purposefulness in behavior, etc. In this form of alexia, "guessing reading" also frequently occurs. However, its nature differs sharply from the forms of "guessing" reading described above. The guessing of words arises not because of defects of perception, but because of instability of attention or inertness of set, etc. The guess does not correspond to the general sense of what is being read, but the patient does not notice the discrepancy between the meaning of the word he has guessed and the sense of the text. He continues formal reading, or reads in accordance with the set that has formed in him, without showing any need to control his actions.
And finally, reading can turn out to be impaired even when all the links of its complex structure are intact, but when the most important condition of reading — eye movement — is impaired. It is known that the act of reading can proceed only with the progressive movement of the eye along the text — a motionless eye cannot read, as many studies in the field of visual perception, and of reading in particular, have shown. Therefore, impairments of eye movement, which frequently occur in connection with lesions of the occipital lobes of the brain, necessarily lead to impairment of reading. In restoring reading in these cases, one should proceed along the path of compensating for the defects of gaze movement, creating conditions for the sequential movement of the eye along the line by means of external aids that promote the progressive movement of the eye along the line and through the whole text.
Such are the main forms of reading impairment in local lesions of the cerebral cortex, each of which has its own structure, dependent on the central defect, and a corresponding method of restorative learning.
Before proceeding to an analysis of each of the forms of alexia and the methods of overcoming them, in order to give a deeper picture of alexia let us dwell on just one general and most important characteristic of all the forms of alexia, concerning the impairment of semantics, of understanding in alexia, and its dependence on various parameters. We shall use experimental material obtained by us in a joint study with I. M. Ulanovskaya (FOOTNOTE: Tsvetkova L. S., Ulanovskaya I. M. On the question of the impairment and restoration of reading in alexia // Dynamic Reading and Rational Work with a Book. Novokuznetsk). In this study, data were obtained on the unequal degree of impairment of understanding in different forms of alexia and at different linguistic levels — the word, the sentence, the text. Thus, patients with acoustic-mnestic alexia understand what is read considerably worse at all levels (words, sentences, texts) compared with groups of patients with motor forms of alexia. Data were also obtained on the differing influence of context on understanding of messages in reading in different forms of alexia: in the motor forms of alexia, patients understand the text better than the sentence. Characteristic of all forms of alexia is a considerably better understanding of the word compared with the understanding of sentences and texts.
A study of the role of context in understanding showed that context has a differing influence on the ability of patients with alexia to understand the objective content of the message being read. In the afferent and efferent motor forms of the reading impairment, the external and internal contexts of what is read are equally important for full understanding. Therefore, the understanding of texts in patients of these groups is better preserved than the understanding of sentences, which is based exclusively on the use of internal context and is connected predominantly with understanding the factual side of the material read. This conclusion finds its confirmation in the strategy of understanding texts characteristic of patients with motor forms of alexia. In acoustic-mnestic alexia, context has a negative influence on understanding. For patients of this group, the most significant factor for understanding proves to be the span of what is read, inversely proportional to the level of context. This experimental fact confirms the author's position that at the basis of acoustic-mnestic alexia, as of the corresponding form of aphasia, lies a narrowing of the span of incoming information, leading to a primary impairment of the process of understanding written speech itself and expressed in a negative influence of the main means of understanding (the external and internal contexts) on the ability of patients with acoustic-mnestic alexia to understand the objective content of a written verbal message.
On the whole, the data of our study allow us to regard alexia as a complex systemic reading impairment, encompassing various links and levels in the structure of the reading process. Differences in the psychological structure of oral speech and of reading can lead aphasia and alexia to impairments differing in structure in their complex forms. Aphasia and alexia in these cases may not coincide, and in alexia the leading impairments are those which, in the corresponding form of aphasia, occupy a subordinate position.
The two brief fragments of research described here are presented merely to show the significance of these data for the restoration of reading in different forms of alexia. These data indicate that in alexia, work must begin at the level of the word, since in all forms of alexia the word is understood better in reading. At later stages of restoration, in the motor forms of alexia it is more useful to work on understanding and reading sentences through the text, which cannot be done in acoustic-mnestic alexia. In the optic forms of alexia, too, it is more important to rely on semantics, on understanding of the word, in order to restore the reading of letters through understanding the meaning of the words.
For the effective restoration of the reading process in different forms of alexia, special methods are needed which would take into account, in addition, the higher, voluntary level of the realization of reading compared with oral speech, on the one hand, and the degree of severity of the reading impairment and the central mechanism (factor), on the other.
As for the material on which the teaching should be conducted, at the beginning of teaching it must meet the requirements of high frequency of vocabulary, simplicity of grammatical constructions, and frequency of the topic of the text and of its verbal composition. Later on — for improving reading — a reduction is needed in the frequency of all the components of the verbal material that hinder "guessing reading".
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