Editorial: The impact of learning to read on visual processing

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When does literacy start to impact on visual processing? Evidence from preschool children and illiterate adults.

An emergent bulk of research indicates that, independently of maturation, learning to read strongly impacts on visual processing, including for non-linguistic materials. Panelists in this symposium will present their latest findings on the neural and cognitive processes modulated by literacy, from low-level visual processes to mirror-image discrimination and letter processing

Literacia científica: leitura e produção de textos científicos

Após discussão do termo e do conceito de literacia, da sua história e do seu contexto sociocultural, são referidas as condições da aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita no sistema alfabético e distinguidos diferentes tipos de “letrado”. É apresentado o subconceito de literacia científica, esboçada a sua história e discutida a sua ambiguidade, concluindo que ele deve incluir tanto a produção escrita da ciência como o conhecimento e compreensão que as pessoas têm desta. É analisada e comentada a parte de leitura e de produção de texto na atividade científica, assim como a relação íntima entre leitura e escrita de texto, e são considerados os hábitos e as exigências das publicações. São ilustrados os baixos níveis da “consciência científica” na população, inclusive na estudantil, e do ensino da ciência na escola, é recomendada a leitura precoce de artigos científicos e considerada favoravelmente a tendência atual à aproximação e em certos casos integração das literacias científica e literária. O estado da literacia (mais precisamente da capacidade de leitura) no contexto da globalização capitalista neoliberal e no Brasil em particular são considerados como travões à generalização da literacia científica. Enfim, é defendida a importância da ciência experimental da cognição e da linguagem e de uma maior orientação do ensino para o desenvolvimento das capacidades de “inteligência fluida”

How literacy affects vision: further data on the processing of mirror images by illiterate adults

In our former work (Kolinsky, Verhaeghe, Fernandes, Mengarda, Grimm-Cabral, Morais, 2011), we showed that adults who remained illiterate for socio-economic reasons have difficulties at processing lateral mirror images. This probably reflects the fact that the Latin alphabet requires taking mirrorimage contrasts into account, in order to distinguish e.g., “b” from “d”, and hence that its acquisition pushes the beginning reader to “unlearn” the mirror symmetry invariance that characterizes our visual system. In addition, our results suggested that the illiterate's difficulties with orientation were not general: they had stronger difficulties with mirror images than with other orientation contrasts like rotations in the plane.In the present study, we aimed at extending the latter result by using other materials and another task. In Experiment 1, we compared two groups of illiterates, both being required to sort circles on the basis of either their size or their orientation. Orientation contrasts involved mirror images in one group and a vertical vs. horizontal difference in the other group, angular separation being the same in both cases. Illiterates were indeed slower at sorting on orientation than on size. Yet, as labeling could have been easier with the vertical-horizontal contrast than with mirror images, in Experiment 2 we used a part-verification task in which we compared mirror images to images rotated in the plane. The illiterates' performance was worse with mirror images than with plane rotations. Thus, illiterates do not have general difficulties with orientation contrasts, but rather specific difficulties for discriminating lateral mirror images

Can it benefit science learning, and how? A theoretical review

UIDB/03213/2020 UIDP/03213/2020 PD/BD/135345/2017 COVID/BD/152481/2022Narrative texts have been advocated as tools to tacklescience learning challenges, and there is even the pro-posal of a“narrative effect”on learning. We believe itis necessary to examine previous evidence on thiseffect, as well as to characterize the process of learningthrough science narrative texts more broadly. In thisarticle, we offer a theoretical review drawing on threeframeworks, namely on pedagogical aspects of textlearning, linguistic features of texts, and cognitiveaspects of text comprehension. Based on that, we ana-lyzed two complementary questions. First, we reviewed36 studies to ask if science narrative texts can benefitlearning and memory outcomes at different educa-tional levels (i.e., the“If”question). We found encour-aging evidence for the use of science narrative texts atvarious educational levels, especially in delayed assess-ments and longer-lasting interventions. Second, wegathered and linked ideas, hints, and evidence on howthe process of learning with science narrative textstakes place, namely on conditions and underlying pro-cesses (i.e., the“How”question). There are many fea-tures from conditions (texts, learners, activities, widercontext) and underlying processes (integration withprior knowledge, affective dispositions, and cognitive abilities) that can help to account for variability in out-comes; yet, ideas and evidence are not always tightlyconnected. We suggest that education and researchshould focus on specific narrative effects, that specifywith what (texts), with whom (learners), when andwhere (activities and wider context) these effects occur,as well as“why”(underlying processes). We believe theproposed framing can help both make sense of previ-ous evidence and inform future educational practicesand research and provide some recommendations inthis regard.publishersversionpublishe

The impact of early and late literacy on the functional connectivity of vision and

Introduction: Learning to read leads to functional and structural changes in the cortical regions related to vision and language. The visual word-form area (VWFA) is though to play a key role in the interaction between these two systems (Dehaene et al. 2015). For instance, the VWFA is activated not only from bottom-up during reading but also in a top-down manner during speech listening without visual stimulation (Dehaene et al. 2010). The objective of this study was twofolded: how literacy acquisition affects four intrinsic functional connectivity networks related to vision and language (a dorsal language [DLN], a bilateral auditory [AN], a low-level [LLVN] and a high-level visual [HLVN] networks); and to explore the role of the VWFA as an interface between high-level vision and language functions. Methods: Independent component analysis (ICA) was applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 40 adult participants with variable levels of literacy (illiterate, late literate and early literate). The four functional connectivity networks were compared across groups using dual-regression (Filippini et al. 2009). In addition, we directly explored the functional connectivity between the VWFA and each of the studied networks. Finally, the strengh of connectivity between the VWFA and each network was compared across groups and correlated with individual reading fluency scores. Results: ICA produced 40 networks, and spatial crosscorrelation was used to identify the four networks of interest. Literacy was positively correlated with increased connectivity within the four networks. A major difference separating early literate from illiterate and late literate subjects was found. The connectivity between the VWFA and the DLN increased with literacy. Conversely, the strength of connectivity between the VWFA and the HLVN correlated negatively with literacy. Finally, , the HLVN-VWFA connectivity was negatively correlated with reading scores while the connectivity between the DLN-VWFA was positively correlated with reading scores. Discussion:Literacy has a strong influence on the visual and language functional networks. Literacy modifies the VWFA connectivity, by making it functionally closer to the language system, and more distinct from other associative visual areas that do not contribute to the reading process. The current results suggest that early acquisition of literacy plays a critical role for the tuning of the functional brain architecture. References: -Dehaene S et al. Nat Rev Neurosci.(2015)16:234 244 -Dehaene S et al. Science.(2010)330:1359–1364 -Filippini N et al. PNAS.(2009)106, 7209–7214Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A literacia e seus desafios: promover o pensamento crítico em pessoas subletradas

We begin by defining the concept of literacy and illustrate its impact on cognitive abilities, in particular on memory and language comprehension. We then consider the hypothesis that literacy contributes to raising the quality and depth of critical thinking. This, in turn, supports the capacity for intellectual self-defense – in terms of cognitive science, “epistemic vigilance” – in relation to fake news and other maneuvers to distort the facts or of lying propaganda. Finally, we discuss the results of pre-tests of an experimental project in which several groups of subliterate adults will receive training in literacy and critical thinking skills.Definimos o conceito de literacia e ilustramos o impacto desta nas capacidades cognitivas, em particular de memória e de compreensão da linguagem. A seguir, consideramos a hipótese de que a literacia contribui para elevar a qualidade e a profundidade do pensamento crítico. Este, por sua vez, sustenta a capacidade de autodefesa intelectual – em termos de ciência cognitiva, de “vigilância epistémica” – relativamente às fake news e a outras manobras de desvirtuação dos fatos ou de propaganda mentirosa. Finalmente, são discutidos os resultados de pré-testes de um projeto experimental em que diversos grupos de adultos subletrados receberão treinamento das capacidades de literacia e de pensamento crítico

Palmprint Identification Based on Generalization of IrisCode

The development of accurate and reliable security systems is a matter of wide interest, and in this context biometrics is seen as a highly effective automatic mechanism for personal identification. Among biometric technologies, IrisCode developed by Daugman in 1993 is regarded as a highly accurate approach, being able to support real-time personal identification of large databases. Since 1993, on the top of IrisCode, different coding methods have been proposed for iris and fingerprint identification. In this research, I extend and generalize IrisCode for real-time secure palmprint identification. PalmCode, the first coding method for palmprint identification developed by me in 2002, directly applied IrisCode to extract phase information of palmprints as features. However, I observe that the PalmCodes from the different palms are similar, having many 45o streaks. Such structural similarities in the PalmCodes of different palms would reduce the individuality of PalmCodes and the performance of palmprint identification systems. To reduce the correlation between PalmCodes, in this thesis, I employ multiple elliptical Gabor filters with different orientations to compute different PalmCodes and merge them to produce a single feature, called Fusion Code. Experimental results demonstrate that Fusion Code performs better than PalmCode. Based on the results of Fusion Code, I further identify that the orientation fields of palmprints are powerful features. Consequently, Competitive Code, which uses real parts of six Gabor filters to estimate the orientation fields, is developed. To embed the properties of IrisCode, such as high speed matching, in Competitive Code, a novel coding scheme and a bitwise angular distance are proposed. Experimental results demonstrate that Competitive Code is much more effective than other palmprint algorithms. Although many coding methods have been developed based on IrisCode for iris and palmprint identification, we lack a detailed analysis of IrisCode. One of the aims of this research is to provide such analysis as a way of better understanding IrisCode, extending the coarse phase representation to a precise phase representation, and uncovering the relationship between IrisCode and other coding methods. This analysis demonstrates that IrisCode is a clustering process with four prototypes; the locus of a Gabor function is a two-dimensional ellipse with respect to a phase parameter and the bitwise hamming distance can be regarded as a bitwise angular distance. In this analysis, I also point out that the theoretical evidence of the imposter binomial distribution of IrisCode is incomplete. I use this analysis to develop a precise phase representation which can enhance iris recognition accuracy and to relate IrisCode and other coding methods. By making use of this analysis, principal component analysis and simulated annealing, near optimal filters for palmprint identification are sought. The near optimal filters perform better than Competitive Code in term of d’ index. Identical twins having the closest genetics-based relationship are expected to have maximum similarity in their biometrics. Classifying identical twins is a challenging problem for some automatic biometric systems. Palmprint has been studied for personal identification for many years. However, genetically identical palmprints have not been studied. I systemically examine Competitive Code on genetically identical palmprints for automatic personal identification and to uncover the genetically related palmprint features. The experimental results show that the three principal lines and some portions of weak lines are genetically related features but our palms still contain rich genetically unrelated features for classifying identical twins. As biometric systems are vulnerable to replay, database and brute-force attacks, such potential attacks must be analyzed before they are massively deployed in security systems. I propose projected multinomial distribution for studying the probability of successfully using brute-force attacks to break into a palmprint system based on Competitive Code. The proposed model indicates that it is computationally infeasible to break into the palmprint system using brute-force attacks. In addition to brute-force attacks, I address the other three security issues: template re-issuances, also called cancellable biometrics, replay attacks, and database attacks. A random orientation filter bank (ROFB) is used to generate cancellable Competitive Codes for templates re-issuances. Secret messages are hidden in templates to prevent replay and database attacks. This technique can be regarded as template watermarking. A series of analyses is provided to evaluate the security levels of the measures