Entre percepção e cognição : impactos da aprendizagem da leitura sobre visão, linguagem e raciocínio em crianças e adultos.

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate the influence of reading acquisition on language and cognition, in particular, the implications of literacy on visual processing, linguistic processing (especially at the phonological and morphological levels), and logical reasoning. To this end, four studies were conducted with three groups of children: kindergarten (n=14), 2nd grade (n=8), and 4th grade (n=19) of elementary school, and three groups of adults: illiterate (n=14), late literate (n=12), and literate since childhood (n=10). Study 1 aimed to assess reading skills using the following instruments: alphabet knowledge, word and pseudoword reading, word and pseudoword reading fluency, and TIL/Lobrot, in addition to a socioeconomic profile questionnaire. The results of Study 1 show progression in reading skills among the groups of children and a correlation with parental education. Among adult groups, late literate outperformed illiterate, but remained below those who learned to read in childhood, with average performance similar to that of 2nd grade children. Study 2 sought to investigate the influence of learning to read on phonological awareness (phonemic sensitivity, syllabic subtraction, and phonemic subtraction) and morphological awareness (neologism production and grammatical categorization). The findings of this study indicate that learning to read develops phonemic awareness and improves phonemic sensitivity and syllabic awareness. Effects on morphological processing were also observed, although more indirect and mediated by phonology and schooling. Study 3 investigated the influence of literacy on the directionality of visual processing and timeline representation, through the performance on two tests (reading attempt, naming and recall) on eye-tracking equipment, as well as an evolutionary order test. The results reveal that, while children showed a systematic increase in left-right directionality in all tasks, indicating that literacy begins to guide visual processing and temporal representation, among adults, these effects were restricted to linguistic stimuli, without consistent evidence for non-linguistic materials, and limited by the low proficiency of late literate. Study 4 sought to investigate the effect of literacy per se, schooling, and familiarity on logical verbal reasoning through the conceptual replication of Luria's (1976) and Scribner and Cole's (1981) syllogistic problems, in addition to the application of syllogistic problems developed by the author, followed by a change of instruction and repetition. The results show that schooling, more than literacy alone, was the main factor associated with syllogistic performance, with more robust effects in children than in adults: while familiarity reduced differences between groups, hypothetical instruction benefited only participants with some formal schooling, and performance on repetition was strongly associated with performance on syllogistic problems. Taken together, the results indicate that learning to read modifies visual and linguistic processing and contributes to verbal reasoning, although its effects are modulated by proficiency and schooling.