In tests on rhesus macaque monkeys, scientists have demonstrated that a region called the inferior temporal (IT) cortex in the primate's brain is capable of providing the essential information we need to turn strings of letters into something more meaningful.

That neural behaviour suggests that, instead of evolving new areas of the brain specifically for reading, human beings may have repurposed the same brain region while developing the ability to recognise words as they were written down – what's known as orthographic processing.

The study also supports the idea that humans took the evolved mechanisms of the inferior temporal cortex and then repurposed them to make proper sense of words and symbols – though more research is going to be needed to know for sure.