The Enhanced Literate Mind Hypothesis.

Falk Huettig, Jan Hulstijn

Open access · hybridAbstract read

In one paragraph

Article in Topics in cognitive science, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

1citing papers in PubMed

2.1field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.

Regression analyses of event-related brain potentials dissociate general reading experience and domain-specific knowledge sources during language comprehension.Frontiers in cognition · 2026
Article

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.

Falk HuettigMax Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

Jan HulstijnAmsterdam Center for Language and Communication, University of Amsterdam.

University of Amsterdam · NLUniversity of Kaiserslautern · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In the present paper, we describe the Enhanced Literate Mind (ELM) hypothesis. As individuals learn to read and write, they are, from then on, exposed to extensive written-language input and become literate. We propose that acquisition and proficient processing of written language ("literacy") leads to, both, increased language knowledge as well as enhanced language and nonlanguage (perceptual and cognitive) skills. We also suggest that all neurotypical native language users, including illiterate, low literate, and high literate individuals, share a Basic Language Cognition (BLC) in the domain of oral informal language. Finally, we discuss the possibility that the acquisition of ELM leads to some degree of "knowledge parallelism" between BLC and ELM in literate language users, which has implications for empirical research on individual and situational differences in spoken language processing.

Indexed as

CognitionLanguageLiteracyReadingHumansPsycholinguisticsEnhancementLiteracyOral informal languageReadingShared language repertoireWritten language

Identifiers

PMID38554287

DOI10.1111/tops.12731

PMCPMC12560850

OpenAlexW4393337812

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceCC BY-NC-ND

Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.