Abstract
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.
Highlights
Visual word recognition is the process of decoding a visual representation of a word and accessing its meaning, a human skill that is crucial to our ability to read and gain information from the world
To characterize the changes that occur with prolonged lexical decision task (LDT) performance and more efficient processing, we focused on two measures of brain function: event-related potentials (ERPs), and brain signal complexity, which reflects processing capacity in the brain [18,19]
As a second measure of brain function associated with increased efficiency resulting from prolonged LDT performance, we examined brain signal complexity
Summary
Visual word recognition is the process of decoding a visual representation of a word and accessing its meaning, a human skill that is crucial to our ability to read and gain information from the world. Visual word recognition can be carried out quickly and automatically [1] These qualities might suggest that visual word recognition is a relatively effortless process. When faced with the standard word recognition paradigm, a yes–no lexical decision task (LDT; is the stimulus a word?), some degree of thought and attention is required before a decision can be made, in order to evaluate whether the letter string is familiar or unfamiliar. In this way, visual word recognition as part of LDT performance is not initially efficient. In the BLP, the authors found that LDT response times (RT) decreased across a
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