The diagnosis? Eye-ear dissociation. The cause? Inappropriate training of the auditory brain cortex (see the previous Listening chapter). People can be perfect readers, but, at the same time, poor listeners. (The contrary – the ears understand, but the eyes cannot read – exists too: illiteracy.) To neuroscientists, this is not surprising; eyes and ears are different entry ports for distinct elaboration and storage sites in the brain. Training the visual brain areas at the back of the head (see Figure ) has little influence on the performance of the auditory brain areas. Surprise: what seemed to be a single task – learning a new language.
