scholarly journals Increased Neural Efficiency in Visual Word Recognition: Evidence from Alterations in Event-Related Potentials and Multiscale Entropy

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
Kelsey Cnudde ◽  
Sophia van Hees ◽  
Sage Brown ◽  
Gwen van der Wijk ◽  
Penny M. Pexman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Multiscale Entropy ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Late Positive Component ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Related Potentials

Visual word recognition is a relatively effortless process, but recent research suggests the system involved is malleable, with evidence of increases in behavioural efficiency after prolonged lexical decision task (LDT) performance. However, the extent of neural changes has yet to be characterized in this context. The neural changes that occur could be related to a shift from initially effortful performance that is supported by control-related processing, to efficient task performance that is supported by domain-specific processing. To investigate this, we replicated the British Lexicon Project, and had participants complete 16 h of LDT over several days. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) at three intervals to track neural change during LDT performance and assessed event-related potentials and brain signal complexity. We found that response times decreased during LDT performance, and there was evidence of neural change through N170, P200, N400, and late positive component (LPC) amplitudes across the EEG sessions, which suggested a shift from control-related to domain-specific processing. We also found widespread complexity decreases alongside localized increases, suggesting that processing became more efficient with specific increases in processing flexibility. Together, these findings suggest that neural processing becomes more efficient and optimized to support prolonged LDT performance.

scholarly journals Neuroplasticity in visual word recognition: An exploration of learning-related behavioural and neural changes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelsey Cnudde ◽  
Sophia van Hees ◽  
Sage Brown ◽  
Gwen van der Wijk ◽  
Penny M. Pexman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Recognition System ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Signal Complexity ◽  
Lexical Processes

Visual word recognition is perceived to remain relatively stable throughout adulthood, but recent research suggests the system involved is malleable, with evidence of behavioural changes after lexical decision task (LDT) practice. The potential for, and extent of, neural changes have yet to be elucidated in this context. If identified, these neural changes could be due to processes associated with learning, where performance that is initially effortful becomes efficient and supported by an optimized task network. Replicating the British Lexicon Project, participants completed 16 hours of LDT learning over several days. We recorded EEG at three intervals to track neural change during LDT learning and assessed event-related potentials and brain signal complexity. We found that response times decreased during LDT learning, and there was evidence of neural change through N170, P200, N400, and LPC amplitudes across the EEG sessions, suggesting alterations to both the general cognitive and specific lexical processes involved in LDT performance. We also found widespread complexity decreases alongside localized increases, suggesting that processing became more automatic with specific increases in processing flexibility. These findings suggest that the visual word recognition system is dynamic, and has the potential for plastic changes to support more efficient and automatic task performance.

From Orthography to Phonetics: ERP Measures of Grapheme-to-Phoneme Conversion Mechanisms in Reading

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Mado Proverbio ◽  
Liza Vecchi ◽  
Alberto Zani
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Lexical Frequency ◽  
Magnetic Source Imaging ◽  
Pure Alexia ◽  
Related Potentials

Neuroimaging has provided evidence that the first stages of visual word recognition activate a visual word-form center localized in the left extrastriate cortex (fusiform gyrus). Accordingly, neurological cases of patients suffering from pure alexia reported the left posterior occipital lobe as the possible locus of orthographic analysis. There is less agreement in the literature about which brain structures are involved in the subsequent stages of word processing and, in particular, their time course of activation. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic source imaging studies recently reported data that could indicate a dual route model of reading. These findings are particularly relevant to studies on the functional deficits associated with phonological and surface dyslexia. There is evidence for the existence of two different brain mechanisms supporting phonological processing in visual word recognition: one mechanism subserving “assembled phonology” for reading letter strings and another one subserving “addressed phonology” for reading meaningful words. However, available knowledge on the time course and neural locus of grapheme-to-phoneme conversion mechanisms in reading is still inadequate. In this study, we compared processing of meaningful and meaningless Italian words in a task requiring a phonemic/phonetic decision task. Stimuli were 1152 different orthographic stimuli presented in the central visual field. Half the stimuli were Italian words (with a high or low frequency of occurrence), the other half were meaningless strings of letters (legal pseudowords and letter strings). Event-related potentials were recorded from 28 scalp sites in 10 Italian university students. The task consisted of deciding about the presence/absence of a given “phone” in the hypothetical enunciation of word read: for example, “Is there a/k/in cheese?”. Results showed that lexical frequency and orthographical regularity affected linguistic processing within 150 msec poststimulus. Indeed, the amplitude of a centroparietal P150 varied as a function of stimulus type, being larger in response to high-frequency words than to lowfrequency ones and to words and pseudowords than to letter strings. This component might index visual categorization processes and recognition of familiar objects, being highly sensitive to orthographic regularity and “ill-formedness” of words. The amplitude of the P150 was the same in response to well-formed meaningless and to meaningful words, when these latter had a low lexical frequency. This might indicate that highly familiar words are recognized as meaningful unitary visual objects at very early stages of processing, through a visual route to an orthographic input lexicon. Moreover, the amplitude of the negativity recorded between 250 and 350 msec showed an anteroposterior topographic dissociation for access to the phonemic representation of wellor ill-formed strings of characters. Brain responses were larger over the left occipito-temporal regions during reading of words and pseudowords and over the left frontal regions during reading of letter strings.

scholarly journals On the Time Course of Visual Word Recognition: An Event-related Potential Investigation using Masked Repetition Priming

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 1631-1643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip J. Holcomb ◽  
Jonathan Grainger
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Repetition Priming ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Animal Names ◽  
Masked Repetition

The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the time course of visual word recognition using a masked repetition priming paradigm. Participants monitored target words for occasional animal names, and ERPs were recorded to nonanimal critical items that were full repetitions, partial repetitions, or unrelated to the immediately preceding masked prime word. The results showed a strong modulation of the N400 and three earlier ERP components (P150, N250, and the P325) that we propose reflect sequential overlapping steps in the processing of printed words.

scholarly journals Is RoAsT tougher than StEAk?: The effect of case mixing on perception of multi-letter graphemes

Psihologija ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Havelka ◽  
Clive Frankish
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Visual Segmentation ◽  
Word Shape

Case mixing is a technique that is used to investigate the perceptual processes involved in visual word recognition. Two experiments examined the effect of case mixing on lexical decision latencies. The aim of these experiments was to establish whether different case mixing patterns would interact with the process of appropriate visual segmentation and phonological assembly in word reading. In the first experiment, case mixing had a greater effect on response times to words when it led to visual disruption of the multi-letter graphemes (MLGs) as well as the overall word shape (e.g. pLeAd), compared to when it disrupted overall word shape only (e.g. plEAd). A second experiment replicated this finding with words in which MLGs represent either the vowel (e.g. bOaST vs. bOAst) or the consonant sound (e.g. sNaCK vs. sNAcK). These results confirm that case mixing can have different effect depending on the type of orthographic unit that is broken up by the manipulation. They demonstrate that graphemes are units that play an important role in visual word recognition, and that manipulation of their presentation by case mixing will have a significant effect on response latencies to words in a lexical decision task. As such these findings need to be taken into account by the models of visual word recognition.

scholarly journals Hemispheric Organization of Visual Word Recognition in Turkish Monolinguals

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-233
Author(s):  
Filiz Mergen ◽  
Gulmira Kuruoglu
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Brain Hemispheres ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Brain

Recently obtained data from interdisciplinary research has expanded our knowledge on the relationship between language and the brain considerably. Numerous aspects of language have been the subject of research. Visual word recognition is a temporal process which starts with recognizing the physical features of words and matching them with potential candidates in the mental lexicon. Word frequency plays a significant role in this process. Other factors are the similarities in spelling and pronunciation, and whether words have meanings or are simply letter strings. The emotional load of the words is another factor that deserves a closer inspection as an overwhelming amount of evidence supports the privileged status of emotions both in verbal and nonverbal tasks. It is well-established that lexical processing is handled by the involvement of the brain hemispheres to varying degrees, and that the left hemisphere has greater involvement in verbal tasks as compared to the right hemisphere. Also, the emotional load of the verbal stimuli affects the specialized roles of the brain hemispheres in lexical processing. Despite the abundance of research on processing of words that belong to languages from a variety of language families, the number of studies that investigated Turkish, a language of Uralic-Altaic origin, is scarce. This study aims to fill the gap in the literature by reporting evidence on how Turkish words with and without emotional load are processed and represented in the brain. We employed a visual hemifield paradigm and a lexical decision task. The participants were instructed to decide if the letter strings presented either from the right or the left of the computer screen were real words or non-words. Their response times and accuracy of their answers were recorded. We obtained shorter response times and higher accuracy rates for real words than non-words as reported in the majority of studies in the literature. We also found that the emotional load modulated the recognition of words, supporting the results in the literature. Finally, our results are in line with the view of left hemispheric superiority in lexical processing in monolingual speakers.

The Dopamine Receptor D2 C957T Polymorphism Modulates Early Components of Event-Related Potentials in Visual Word Recognition Task

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera E. Golimbet ◽  
Zhanna V. Garakh ◽  
Yuliya Zaytseva ◽  
Margarita V. Alfimova ◽  
Tatyana V. Lezheiko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Dopamine Receptor ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Dopamine Receptor D2 ◽  
Related Potentials

scholarly journals Are Vowels and Consonants Processed Differently? Event-related Potential Evidence with a Delayed Letter Paradigm

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Carreiras ◽  
Margaret Gillon-Dowens ◽  
Marta Vergara ◽  
Manuel Perea
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Simultaneous Presentation ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Baseline Condition ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Processing Event

To investigate the neural bases of consonant and vowel processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read words and pseudowords in a lexical decision task. The stimuli were displayed in three different conditions: (i) simultaneous presentation of all letters (baseline condition); (ii) presentation of all letters, except that two internal consonants were delayed for 50 msec (consonants-delayed condition); and (iii) presentation of all letters, except that two internal vowels were delayed for 50 msec (vowels-delayed condition). The behavioral results showed that, for words, response times in the consonants-delayed condition were longer than in the vowels-delayed condition, which, in turn, were longer than in the baseline condition. The ERPs showed that, starting as early as 150 msec, words in the consonants-delayed condition produced a larger negativity than words in vowels-delayed condition. In addition, there were peak latency differences and amplitude differences in the P150, N250, P325, and N400 components between the baseline and the two letter-delayed conditions. We examine the implications of these findings for models of visual-word recognition and reading.

The role of phonology in visual word recognition

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Penke ◽  
Kathrin Schrader
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Reading Proficiency ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Semantic Decision ◽  
Semantic Decision Task ◽  
The Given

The goal of this paper is to investigate the role phonology plays for visual word recognition and the change this role undergoes in the course of reading acquisition by providing data on German readers at different stages of reading proficiency. Erroneous responses in a semantic decision task, which employs words that are either homophonous or graphemically similar to a word of a previously introduced semantic field, were compared at different stages of reading development (i.e. in second- and fourth-grade school children and adults). In all age groups, subjects committed significantly more errors with homophones than with words graphemically similar to a word related to the given semantic field. The results show that phonological recoding plays an important role for visual word recognition not only with beginners but also in skilled readers and, hence, corroborate phonological models of reading.

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