Active Psychology & Behaviour Brain & Nervous System

Attention to Reading

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation University of Birmingham
Funding £2.6M
Period Oct 2023 — Sept 2031

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

When a child learns to read, their brain must learn to coordinate tiny, rapid eye movements with shifts in visual attention—yet the neural mechanism behind this coordination remains unknown. This matters because reading is a foundational skill, but current teaching methods and interventions for struggling readers are built on behavioural observations, not on a clear understanding of the brain’s underlying dynamics. The gap is that we do not know how brain oscillations—rhythmic electrical activity—guide the flow of visual information and control eye movements during natural reading, or how this system matures as children learn. If this research succeeds, it will create a new field: using advanced brain imaging to study reading as a dynamic neural process. The team will build a computational model of a “pipelining” mechanism, test it in adults and children using magnetoencephalography combined with eye-tracking, and causally test it with brain stimulation. They will also develop a paediatric optically pumped magnetometer system, making such measurements feasible in children. The potential impact is a mechanistic, brain-based understanding of reading acquisition—which could eventually inform how we diagnose and support children with reading difficulties, moving beyond trial-and-error teaching to interventions grounded in how the brain actually works.

View original technical description
Reading is an essential human skill relying on coordinating saccades and visual attention while translating text to meaning. Yet the neuronal mechanisms supporting natural reading are poorly understood. We will develop a new research field exploiting insight into spatial attention to uncover the neuronal dynamics supporting natural reading – and investigate how the mechanism matures in children with learning. The research is anchored in a pipelining mechanism providing a hypothesis for how brain oscillations guide the flow of information and control saccades during reading. The mechanism will be made explicit in a computational model implemented as a dynamical deep neural network. We will test the mechanism in children and adults using magnetoencephalography (MEG) combined with eye-tracking. Hypothesis testing will rely on novel methodology including rapid invisible frequency tagging, multivariate analyses and natural language processing. Brain stimulation, perturbing neuronal oscillations, allows for causally testing the pipelining mechanism. We will develop a paediatric Optically Pumped Magnetometer (OPM) system to understand the mechanisms that must develop in children learning to read. My proposal will catalyze a new research field in which state-of-the-art electrophysiological imaging approaches are used to translate fundamental research on spatial attention to uncover the mechanism of reading and reading acquisition.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Ole Jensen (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

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Original classification

Discovery Award

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