Reading is a practically important example of inference and language, and a leading researcher on
dyslexia has recently reviewed the current state of knowledge of how brains manage to read.
Maryanne Wolf points out that literacy is a recent development in human history, going back only
about five thousand years, to the Sumerians. There is no evidence that the brain evolved special
functions to support reading; rather, reading is like many other cultural developments in using neural
mechanisms that evolved for other reasons. Wolf describes how successful reading requires
interactions among several brain areas, including occipital, temporal, and frontal regions. Difficulties
in reading can arise because of problems with particular areas, such as the angular gyrus, but also
because of interactions between or among different areas. Neural explanations of reading ability and
dyslexia are still sketchy and provisional, but the prospects for further advances in the understanding
of these and other features of language use appear strong.