Decoding and disrupting left midfusiform gyrus activity during word reading

The nature of the visual representation for words has been fiercely debated for over 150 y. We used direct brain stimulation, pre- and postsurgical behavioral measures, and intracranial electroencephalography to provide support for, and elaborate upon, the visual word form hypothesis. This hypothesis states that activity in the left midfusiform gyrus (lmFG) reflects visually organized information about words and word parts. In patients with electrodes placed directly in their lmFG, we found that disrupting lmFG activity through stimulation, and later surgical resection in one of the patients, led to impaired perception of whole words and letters. Furthermore, using machine-learning methods to analyze the electrophysiological data from these electrodes, we found that information contained in early lmFG activity was consistent with an orthographic similarity space. Finally, the lmFG contributed to at least two distinguishable stages of word processing, an early stage that reflects gist-level visual representation sensitive to orthographic statistics, and a later stage that reflects more precise representation sufficient for the individuation of orthographic word forms. These results provide strong support for the visual word form hypothesis and demonstrate that across time the lmFG is involved in multiple stages of orthographic representation.

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Is Word Recognition Automatic? A Cognitive-Anatomical Approach

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.1989.1.1.50 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 50-60 ◽

Cited By ~ 120

Author(s):

Michael I. Posner ◽

Jennifer Sandson ◽

Meena Dhawan ◽

Gordon L. Shulman

Keyword(s):

Word Processing ◽

Occipital Lobe ◽

Visual Word ◽

Word Form ◽

Auditory Word ◽

Peripheral Cues ◽

Attention System ◽

Word Forms ◽

Anatomical Localization ◽

Mental Operations

What are the implications of anatomical localization of component mental operations for cognitive models? In this paper we use the anatomical localizations of visual and auditory word processing that were previously reported from PET studies (Petersen, Fox, Posner, Mintun & Raichle, 1988. We hypothesize that two operations performed simultaneously by the same or heavily interconnected anatomical areas will produce specific interference. One task is repeating back (shadowing) auditory words as quickly as possible. This task is shown to interfere with shifts of visual attention in the direction of peripheral cues. Both tasks are known to require common attentional operations localized to the medial frontal lobe. The shadowing task does not interfere with operations involving priming of a visual word form. This kind of priming involves areas of the ventral occipital lobe not used during shadowing. Finally, both shadowing and semantic priming involve anterior semantic and intentional areas. Accordingly, they can interfere. The conditions under which they produce interference suggest that the interference involves operations performed by the anterior attention system. These experiments support the idea that words automatically activate visual word forms, but involve shared attentional systems for higher level processes.

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Functional Role of the Left Ventral Occipito-Temporal Cortex in Reading

Advances in Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering - Biomedical Engineering and Cognitive Neuroscience for Healthcare ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-2113-8.ch020 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 192-200

Author(s):

Geqi Qi ◽

Jinglong Wu

Keyword(s):

Functional Properties ◽

Functional Role ◽

Word Processing ◽

Functional Organization ◽

Temporal Cortex ◽

Visual Word ◽

Word Form ◽

Considerable Debate ◽

Two Sides

The sensitivity of the left ventral occipito-temporal (vOT) cortex to visual word processing has triggered a considerable debate about the functional role of this region in reading. The debate rests largely on the issue whether this particular region is specifically dedicated to reading and the extraction of invariant visual word form. A lot of studies have been conducted to provide evidences supporting or against the functional specialization of this region. However, the trend is showing that the different functional properties proposed by the two kinds of view are not in conflict with each other, but instead show different sides of the same fact. Here, the authors focus on two questions: firstly, where do the two views conflict, and secondly, how do they fit with each other on a larger framework of functional organization in object vision pathway? This review evaluates findings from the two sides of the debate for a broader understanding of the functional role of the left vOT cortex.

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Visual word form processing deficits driven by severity of reading impairments in children with developmental dyslexia

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-75111-8 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Author(s):

S. Brem ◽

U. Maurer ◽

M. Kronbichler ◽

M. Schurz ◽

F. Richlan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Reading Fluency ◽

Word Processing ◽

Visual Word ◽

Common Finding ◽

Word Form ◽

Reduced Word ◽

Form Processing ◽

Visual Word Form Area ◽

Intermediate Readers ◽

Spatially Extended

Abstract The visual word form area (VWFA) in the left ventral occipito-temporal (vOT) cortex is key to fluent reading in children and adults. Diminished VWFA activation during print processing tasks is a common finding in subjects with severe reading problems. Here, we report fMRI data from a multicentre study with 140 children in primary school (7.9–12.2 years; 55 children with dyslexia, 73 typical readers, 12 intermediate readers). All performed a semantic task on visually presented words and a matched control task on symbol strings. With this large group of children, including the entire spectrum from severely impaired to highly fluent readers, we aimed to clarify the association of reading fluency and left vOT activation during visual word processing. The results of this study confirm reduced word-sensitive activation within the left vOT in children with dyslexia. Interestingly, the association of reading skills and left vOT activation was especially strong and spatially extended in children with dyslexia. Thus, deficits in basic visual word form processing increase with the severity of reading disability but seem only weakly associated with fluency within the typical reading range suggesting a linear dependence of reading scores with VFWA activation only in the poorest readers.

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Morpheme frequency effects in Dutch complex word reading: A developmental perspective

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716411000178 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 32 (3) ◽

pp. 483-498 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

LUDO VERHOEVEN ◽

ROB SCHREUDER

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Lexical Decision Task ◽

Word Reading ◽

Word Identification ◽

Low Frequency ◽

Decision Task ◽

Word Form ◽

Word Forms ◽

Grade 3 ◽

Complex Words

ABSTRACTThis study examined to what extent advanced and beginning readers, including dyslexic readers of Dutch, make use of morphological access units in the reading of polymorphemic words. Therefore, experiments were carried out in which the role of singular root form frequency in reading plural word forms was investigated in a lexical decision task with both adults and children. Twenty-three adult readers, 37 8-year-old children from Grade 3, 43 11-year-old children from Grade 6, and 33 11-year-old dyslexic readers were presented with a lexical decision task in which we contrasted plural word forms with a high versus low frequency of the singular root form. For the adults, it was found that the accuracy and speed of lexical decision is determined by the surface frequency of the plural word form. The frequency of the constituent root form played a role as well, but in the low-frequency plural words only. Furthermore, a strong developmental effect regarding the accuracy and speed of reading plural word forms was found. An effect of plural word form frequency on word identification was evidenced in all groups. The singular root form frequency also had an impact of the reading of the plural word forms. In the normal reading and dyslexic children, plurals with a high-frequency singular root form were read more accurately and faster than plurals with a low singular root frequency. It can be concluded that constituent morphemes have an impact on the reading of polymorphemic words. The results can be explained in the light of a word experience model leaving room for morphological constituency to play a role in the lexical access of complex words as a function of reading skill and experience and word and morpheme frequency.

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A Cognitive-Anatomical Approach to Attention in Lexical Access

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.1991.3.4.304 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

pp. 304-312 ◽

Cited By ~ 94

Author(s):

Paul E. Compton ◽

Peter Grossenbacher ◽

Michael I. Posner ◽

Don M. Tucker

Keyword(s):

Time Course ◽

Temporal Distribution ◽

Visual Word ◽

Visual Features ◽

Word Form ◽

Feature Identification ◽

Form Discrimination ◽

Word Forms ◽

Semantic Associations ◽

Letter Case

Recent PET studies have suggested a specific anatomy for feature identification, visual word forms and semantic associations. Our studies seek to explore the time course of access to these systems by use of reaction time and scalp electrical recording. Target detection times suggest that different forms of representation are involved in the detection of letter features, feature conjunctions (letters), and words. Feature search is fastest at the fovea and slows symmetrically with greater foveal eccentricity. It is not influenced by lexicality. Detecting a letter case (conjunction) shows a left to right search which differs between words and consonant strings. Analysis of scalp electrical distribution suggest an occipito-temporal distribution for the analysis of visual features (right sided) and for the visual word form discrimination (left sided). These fit with the PET results, and suggest that the feature related analysis begins within the first 100 millisec and the visual word form discriminates words from strings by about 200 msec. Lexical decision instructions can modify the computations found in both frontal and posterior areas.

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The Development of Cortical Sensitivity to Visual Word Forms

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2011.21615 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 23 (9) ◽

pp. 2387-2399 ◽

Cited By ~ 104

Author(s):

Michal Ben-Shachar ◽

Robert F. Dougherty ◽

Gayle K. Deutsch ◽

Brian A. Wandell

Keyword(s):

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

Word Reading ◽

Visual Word ◽

Anatomical Location ◽

Age Related ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Rate Of Increase ◽

Word Forms ◽

Cortical Regions ◽

The Right

The ability to extract visual word forms quickly and efficiently is essential for using reading as a tool for learning. We describe the first longitudinal fMRI study to chart individual changes in cortical sensitivity to written words as reading develops. We conducted four annual measurements of brain function and reading skills in a heterogeneous group of children, initially 7–12 years old. The results show age-related increase in children's cortical sensitivity to word visibility in posterior left occipito-temporal sulcus (LOTS), nearby the anatomical location of the visual word form area. Moreover, the rate of increase in LOTS word sensitivity specifically correlates with the rate of improvement in sight word efficiency, a measure of speeded overt word reading. Other cortical regions, including V1, posterior parietal cortex, and the right homologue of LOTS, did not demonstrate such developmental changes. These results provide developmental support for the hypothesis that LOTS is part of the cortical circuitry that extracts visual word forms quickly and efficiently and highlight the importance of developing cortical sensitivity to word visibility in reading acquisition.

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The Role of the Posterior Fusiform Gyrus in Reading

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2006.18.6.911 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 18 (6) ◽

pp. 911-922 ◽

Cited By ~ 176

Author(s):

Joseph T. Devlin ◽

Helen L. Jamison ◽

Laura M. Gonnerman ◽

Paul M. Matthews

Keyword(s):

Priming Effect ◽

Word Reading ◽

Functional Anatomy ◽

Masked Priming ◽

Biological Psychiatry ◽

Visual Word ◽

Pure Alexia ◽

Word Forms ◽

Single Word Reading ◽

Orthographic Priming

Studies of skilled reading [Price, C. J., & Mechelli, A. Reading and reading disturbance. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 15, 231–238, 2005], its acquisition in children [Shaywitz, B. A., Shaywitz, S. E., Pugh, K. R., Mencl, W. E., Fulbright, R. K., Skudlarski, P., et al. Disruption of posterior brain systems for reading in children with developmental dyslexia. Biological Psychiatry, 52, 101–110, 2002; Turkeltaub, P. E., Gareau, L., Flowers, D. L., Zeffiro, T. A., & Eden, G. F. Development of neural mechanisms for reading. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 767–773, 2003], and its impairment in patients with pure alexia [Leff, A. P., Crewes, H., Plant, G. T., Scott, S. K., Kennard, C., & Wise, R. J. The functional anatomy of single word reading in patients with hemianopic and pure alexia. Brain, 124, 510–521, 2001] all highlight the importance of the left posterior fusiform cortex in visual word recognition. We used visual masked priming and functional magnetic resonance imaging to elucidate the specific functional contribution of this region to reading and found that (1) unlike words, repetition of pseudowords (“solst-solst”) did not produce a neural priming effect in this region, (2) orthographically related words such as “corner-corn” did produce a neural priming effect, but (3) this orthographic priming effect was reduced when prime-target pairs were semantically related (“teacher-teach”). These findings conflict with the notion of stored visual word forms and instead suggest that this region acts as an interface between visual form information and higher order stimulus properties such as its associated sound and meaning. More importantly, this function is not specific to reading but is also engaged when processing any meaningful visual stimulus.

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Considering unique, shared, and dominant brain activation in the Visual Word Form Area and Lateral Occipital Cortex: A comparison of separate and combined word reading and picture naming

10.1101/2021.09.20.461111 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Josh Neudorf ◽

Layla Gould ◽

Marla J. S. Mickleborough ◽

Chelsea Ekstrand ◽

Ron Borowsky

Keyword(s):

Picture Naming ◽

Word Reading ◽

Visual Complexity ◽

Occipital Cortex ◽

Visual Word ◽

Word Form ◽

Lateral Occipital Complex ◽

Visual Word Form Area ◽

The Right ◽

Lateral Occipital Cortex

Identifying printed words and pictures concurrently is ubiquitous in daily tasks, and so it is important to consider the extent to which reading words and naming pictures may share a cognitive-neurophysiological functional architecture. Two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments examined whether reading along the left ventral occipitotemporal region (vOT; often referred to as a visual word form area, VWFA) has activation that is overlapping with referent pictures (i.e., both conditions significant and shared, or with one significantly more dominant) or unique (i.e., one condition significant, the other not), and whether picture naming along the right lateral occipital complex (LOC) has overlapping or unique activation relative to referent words. Experiment 1 used familiar regular and exception words (to force lexical reading) and their corresponding pictures in separate naming blocks, and showed dominant activation for pictures in the LOC, and shared activation in the VWFA for exception words and their corresponding pictures (regular words did not elicit significant VWFA activation). Experiment 2 controlled for visual complexity by superimposing the words and pictures and instructing participants to either name the word or the picture, and showed primarily shared activation in the VWFA and LOC regions for both word reading and picture naming, with some dominant activation for pictures in the LOC. Overall, these results highlight the importance of including exception words to force lexical reading when comparing to picture naming, and the significant shared activation in VWFA and LOC serves to challenge specialized models of reading or picture naming.

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Curved vs. Straight-Line Handwriting Effects on Word Recognition in Typical and Dyslexic Readers Across Chinese and English

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.745300 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Connie Qun Guan ◽

Yifei Li ◽

Wanjin Meng ◽

Laura M. Morett

Keyword(s):

Word Recognition ◽

Multisensory Integration ◽

Character Recognition ◽

Word Processing ◽

Line Drawing ◽

English Word ◽

Visual Word ◽

Word Form ◽

Straight Line ◽

Study Results

Handwriting serves to link auditory and motor routines with visual word processing, which is a hallmark of successful reading. The current study aims to explore the effect of multisensory integration as a pathway to neural specialization for print among typical and dyslexic readers across writing systems. We identified 9–10-year-old dyslexic Chinese children (n = 24) and their typically developing counterparts (n = 24) on whom we conducted both behavioral and electroencephalogram (EEG) experiments. We designed four learning conditions: Handwriting Chinese (HC), Viewing Chinese (VC), Drawing followed by Character Recognition in Chinese (D-C), and Drawing followed by Word Recognition in English (D-E). In both handwriting and drawing conditions, we also designed curved vs. straight-line stimuli. Both behavioral and EEG results showed that handwriting straight line strokes facilitated visual word recognition in Chinese compared to handwriting curved lines. Handwriting conditions resulted in a lateralization of the N170 in typical readers, but not the dyslexic readers. Interestingly, drawing curved lines facilitate word recognition in English among dyslexic readers. Taken together, the results of the study suggest benefits of handwriting on the neural processing and behavioral performance in response to Chinese character recognition and curved-line drawing effects on English word recognition among dyslexic readers. But the lack of handwriting effects in dyslexic readers suggest that students who have deficits in reading may also be missing the link between multisensory integration and word recognition in the visual word form areas. The current study results have implications for maintaining handwriting practices to promote perception and motor integration for visual word form area development for normal readers and suggest that drawing practices might benefit Chinese dyslexic readers in reading English.

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