  In this commentary article to 'The Puzzle of Ideography' by Morin, we put
forth a new cognitive account of the puzzle of ideography, that complements the
standardization account of Morin. Efficient standardization of spoken language
is phenomenologically attributed to a modality effect coupled with chunking of
cognitive representations, further aided by multi-sensory integration and the
serialized nature of attention. These cognitive mechanisms are crucial for
explaining why languages dominate graphic codes for general-purpose human
communication.

Neurons and Cognition;Computation and Language