Through a glass darkly: Research biases that result from wearing ‘literate glasses’

In this comment, I argue that Kolinsky and Morais are correct to highlight the multiple research biases that arise from researchers’ lack of awareness that they are wearing ‘literate glasses’. Converging evidence can be amassed from developmental psychology and indeed, from the widespread use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Furthermore, cognitive neuroscience as currently practiced is busy repeating the mistakes made cognitive science. Accordingly, fundamental conclusions about how the brain represents information in research fields such as semantic memory, space, time and language may apply only to the educated and literate adult brain.