Reading A Novel Changes Your Brain Analysis

Read excerpt # 3 The Anasazi: Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde and excerpt # 4 The Mississippians: Cahokia and Moundville (pp.29-33) by following the link Pre-Columbian America (Learner.org). Type responses to the following questions on Google Doc and save.

In today’s society reading is essential to function. Everywhere people turn they are required to read directions, labels, books, what’s going on in the news, or mandatory rules they need to follow. Just think about if a majority of the world couldn’t read how chaotic society would be.

How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern.

In Eric Kandel's Aplysia experiment, Kandel showed that a slug lost sensitivity in its gills, after repeated contact to which Carr states "the brain...change[s] with experience, circumstance, and need". Both, Kandel's and Merzenich's, experiments lead to the same conclusion of the physical body adapting in real-time to the environment. Carr briefly writes how a man named Bernstein regained movement in his hand and leg after damaging his brain which regulated movement and how through the use of technology analyzing neural activity, Carr tells how violinists had increased cortical areas of their right hand compared to nonmusicians, and compared to their own left cortical areas. Carr's final example for the brain's plasticity is with Pascual-Leone's experiment. Pascual-Leone mapped the brain activity of a group of people playing certain notes on a piano, and a group imagining themselves playing the notes. He concluded that their brains had both changed in response to the experiment, both in playing, and imagining playing. Pascual-Leone's work showed that the human brain can change itself neurologically without physical activity. Carr summarizes, "We become, neurologically, what we think". Carr asserts through these scientific experiments that not only were Freud, J.Z. Young, and William James, correct , but "the adult brain...is not just plastic but...'massively plastic.'" Carr

* First, studies have shown that aspects of experience can sculpt features of brain structure.

His writing is effective and is intended to influence and inform people, and it is written in a way that is impressive but is not honest. The major problem with this article is he does not mention other possible problems that could cause his brain problem. For instance, he could have made the statement that some may argue that as we get older our brain has a harder time staying focused, however, from my research I have found that high internet usage is actually causing this problem. If he would of made a similar argument I would have been able to see both sides and initially form my own opinion. Furthermore, after analyzing his word use there are a variety of neutral words, such as changing helping, calm, etc., so he does not come out overly

Many researches has been performed, showing a new type of reading. Many people today do not read the article or passage, they just skim the entire information given for key information.

Carr brings in Maryanne Wolf a psychologist at a University also a writer to speak on her opinion of matter. Wolf directly said “we are how we read” (Carr), Meaning that if we continue to put technology and that efficiency over education and understanding our mental capabilities will continue to decrease over time, we are seeing people struggling with their abilities to understand the words printed before them, people can't make the same kind of connections from one topic to the other like they used to be and no one can read an entire book let alone an article like this one without getting distracted by the smallest

Leonard Pitts, Jr. says, "I am not alone.” He continues, “There are at least two of us who have forgotten how to read." He doesn't mean that people have forgotten how to read; rather people have forgotten how to become one with the text. There is more than one person who feels that concentration becomes blurred when the text in front of one requires full attention. Short ads and topics one finds interesting are usually easier to read than intellectual books that are imposed on one. It's a little funny, isn’t it?

Dana Gioia's purpose of this essay is to explain to society that reading less will mentally impact them. She is trying to get the message across to everyone, so that they understand the image that there setting on themselves, and impact that is has on them outside of literature. It is also impacting them in the business world. With there decline in reading, it holds there brain from opening up and really creating artistic ideas.

The article “Jumper Cables for the Mind”, written by Dan Hurley, concerns a solution to improving the human mind by sending small amounts of electrical currents to the brain. Hurley’s article didn’t present a compelling argument to Morales-Quezada experiment of sending electrical currents to the brain. The author didn’t apply enough logic on how the experiment would include sending small amounts of energy to the brain; the treatment would activate the brain cells and enhance brain performance. He could have listed more ways on how electrical voltage can develop long term memory, help improve focus, and other functions of the brain. The author’s tone for the article was too informal and laid back, it seems as if he was having an underlying conversation

Angela Duckworth also states “Dr. Dweck has shown that when kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in

As printed text becomes more difficult to read, reading as a hobby has gotten a lot less attractive to some people. UCLA psychology professor Patricia Greenfield points out in her studies, “reading develops imagination, induction,

Reading is one of my favorite pastimes. I am a tuned-in Reader, and I appreciate well written biographies. Enjoyable reading takes my mind off school work and relaxes me. I enjoy academic reading as well, but sometimes it is intense and requires much concentration. Moreover, I am a tuned in reader when it comes to academic subject’s such as; psychology, nutrition, health and history.

The way of learning and reading has changed dramatically over many generations because of new technological advances. Learning is the knowledge acquired through experience, study, or being taught. In Birkerts essay, he explains that learning and how we gather information has changed over time. He says newspapers, magazines, brochures, advertisements, and labels are things that are around individuals every day. These are things that individuals will read to gain knowledge of certain things that are going on. For example, individuals will read labels on food items to see what the food is made out of because some individuals are allergic to certain ingredients and need to know this information. Time has changed the way individuals learn. Learning at one time was all from books and individuals taking notes on those books. Years ago, books were rare and that is what individuals used to learn and when they had a book they had to take out all they could from that book. Learning has gone from just books to many different ways of receiving information. Today’s big new way of learning is from the internet. Individuals have gone from staring at a book for hours to typing a question they have into the internet and getting results back from many sources. Birkerts describes this in his essay, “As we now find ourselves at a cultural watershed-as the fundamental process of transmitting information is shifting from mechanical to circuit-driven, from page to screen-it may be time to ask how