Neuroscience News reports:

In his new book, Falk Huettig, Senior Investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, brings together research spanning psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and education to answer that question.

The result is a systematic account of how literacy reshapes memory, attention, language processing, and reasoning – and even abilities readers might not expect, like face recognition.

Cognitive enhancement is having a moment, with people turning to better sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress management, and tools like caffeine or neurostimulation in search of a sharper mind.

According to Huettig, one of the most powerful enhancers of all has largely flown under the radar: “One of the most powerful cognitive enhancers, with broad and increasingly well-documented effects, is rarely emphasized in these discussions: the ability to read.” [Continue reading…]