Faces and words are both associated and dissociated as evidenced by visual problems in dyslexia

Faces and words are traditionally assumed to be independently processed. Dyslexia is also traditionally thought to be a non-visual deficit. Counter to both ideas, face perception deficits in dyslexia have been reported. Others report no such deficits. We sought to resolve this discrepancy. 60 adults participated in the study (24 dyslexic, 36 typical readers). Feature-based processing and configural or global form processing of faces was measured with a face matching task. Opposite laterality effects in these tasks, dependent on left–right orientation of faces, supported that they tapped into separable visual mechanisms. Dyslexic readers tended to be poorer than typical readers at feature-based face matching while no differences were found for global form face matching. We conclude that word and face perception are associated when the latter requires the processing of visual features of a face, while processing the global form of faces apparently shares minimal—if any—resources with visual word processing. The current results indicate that visual word and face processing are both associated and dissociated—but this depends on what visual mechanisms are task-relevant. We suggest that reading deficits could stem from multiple factors, and that one such factor is a problem with feature-based processing of visual objects.

Word form processing at school age: Evidence for similarities between bilingual and monolingual children

The present study aimed to explore the lexical processing abilities of bilingual school-aged children compared to their monolingual peers. Therefore, word form processing tasks (auditory lexical decision, rapid naming, rhyming), as well as traditional vocabulary tasks (word-picture matching and picture naming), were conducted in a cross-sectional design in a sample of 163 German monolingual and 39 bilingual primary school children (6-9 years), speaking German and another language. Regression analyses revealed that age, gender, and vocabulary size, but not bilingualism have an impact on performance in word form processing tasks. Group comparisons after propensity matching on age, gender, and vocabulary size revealed no significant group differences between monolingual and bilingual children in word form processing tasks. After the sample was divided into two age groups, bilingual children showed an initial weakness at ages 6 to 7 that seems to be overcome during primary school age.

The middle cingulate cortex and dorso-central insula: A mirror circuit encoding observation and execution of vitality forms

Actions with identical goals can be executed in different ways (gentle, rude, vigorous, etc.), which D. N. Stern called vitality forms [D. N. Stern, Forms of Vitality Exploring Dynamic Experience in Psychology, Arts, Psychotherapy, and Development (2010)]. Vitality forms express the agent’s attitudes toward others. In a series of fMRI studies, we found that the dorso-central insula (DCI) is the region that is selectively active during both vitality form observation and execution. In one previous experiment, however, the middle cingulate gyrus also exhibited activation. In the present study, in order to assess the role of the cingulate cortex in vitality form processing, we adopted a classical vitality form paradigm, but making the control condition devoid of vitality forms using jerky movements. Participants performed two different tasks: Observation of actions performed gently or rudely and execution of the same actions. The results showed that in addition to the insula, the middle cingulate cortex (MCC) was strongly activated during both action observation and execution. Using a voxel-based analysis, voxels showing a similar trend of the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal in both action observation and execution were found in the DCI and in the MCC. Finally, using a multifiber tractography analysis, we showed that the active sites in MCC and DCI are reciprocally connected.

Distinct neural sources underlying visual word form processing as revealed by steady state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP)

EEG has been central to investigations of the time course of various neural functions underpinning visual word recognition. Recently the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) paradigm has been increasingly adopted for word recognition studies due to its high signal-to-noise ratio. Such studies, however, have been typically framed around a single source in the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOT). Here, we combine SSVEP recorded from 16 adult native English speakers with a data-driven spatial filtering approach—Reliable Components Analysis (RCA)—to elucidate distinct functional sources with overlapping yet separable time courses and topographies that emerge when contrasting words with pseudofont visual controls. The first component topography was maximal over left vOT regions with a shorter latency (approximately 180 ms). A second component was maximal over more dorsal parietal regions with a longer latency (approximately 260 ms). Both components consistently emerged across a range of parameter manipulations including changes in the spatial overlap between successive stimuli, and changes in both base and deviation frequency. We then contrasted word-in-nonword and word-in-pseudoword to test the hierarchical processing mechanisms underlying visual word recognition. Results suggest that these hierarchical contrasts fail to evoke a unitary component that might be reasonably associated with lexical access.

Joint representation of color and form in convolutional neural networks: A stimulus-rich network perspective

To interact with real-world objects, any effective visual system must jointly code the unique features defining each object. Despite decades of neuroscience research, we still lack a firm grasp on how the primate brain binds visual features. Here we apply a novel network-based stimulus-rich representational similarity approach to study color and form binding in five convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with varying architecture, depth, and presence/absence of recurrent processing. All CNNs showed near-orthogonal color and form processing in early layers, but increasingly interactive feature coding in higher layers, with this effect being much stronger for networks trained for object classification than untrained networks. These results characterize for the first time how multiple basic visual features are coded together in CNNs. The approach developed here can be easily implemented to characterize whether a similar coding scheme may serve as a viable solution to the binding problem in the primate brain.

Neural Sources Underlying Visual Word Form Processing as Revealed by Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEP)

EEG has been central to investigations of the time course of various neural functions underpinning visual word recognition. Recently the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) paradigm has been increasingly adopted for word recognition studies due to its high signal-to-noise ratio. Such studies, however, have been typically framed around a single source in the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOT). Here, we combine SSVEP recorded from 16 adult native English speakers with a data-driven spatial filtering approach—Reliable Components Analysis (RCA)—to elucidate distinct functional sources with overlapping yet separable time courses and topographies that emerge when contrasting words with pseudofont visual controls. The first component topography was maximal over left vOT regions with an early latency (approximately 180 msec). A second component was maximal over more dorsal parietal regions with a longer latency (approximately 260 msec). Both components consistently emerged across a range of parameter manipulations including changes in the spatial overlap between successive stimuli, and changes in both base and deviation frequency. We then contrasted word-in-nonword and word-in-pseudoword to test the hierarchical processing mechanisms underlying visual word recognition. Results suggest that these hierarchical contrasts fail to evoke a unitary component that might be reasonably associated with lexical access.

A Survey On Telugu Optical Character Recognition From Digital Images

Images play an essential function in the electronic media to share information. Nowadays, each event is going to be recorded in the arrangement of digital images. Text from the image file won't be in a format on the computer. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) for English vocabulary is well constructed. Currently, there's a requirement of OCR for Indian languages to maintain historical documents composed mainly in Indian languages to arrange publications in the library and for program form processing. OCR for the Telugu language is challenging as consonants and vowels plays a vital role in forming words along with vattus and gunithas. It may be a mixture of vowels and consonants that may form a compound character. This paper presents research on methods utilized in the OCR method for the Telugu Language until today.