The dynamics of reading complex words: evidence from steady-state visual evoked potentials

Elisabeth Beyersmann,Johannes C. Ziegler,Veronica Montani,Jonathan Grainger,Ivilin Peev Stoianov

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-95292-0

Abstract

The present study used steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) to examine the spatio-temporal dynamics of reading morphologically complex words and test the neurophysiological activation pattern elicited by stems and suffixes. Three different types of target words were presented to proficient readers in a delayed naming task: truly suffixed words (e.g., farmer), pseudo-suffixed words (e.g., corner), and non-suffixed words (e.g., cashew). Embedded stems and affixes were flickered at two different frequencies (18.75 Hz and 12.50 Hz, respectively). The stem data revealed an earlier SSVEP peak in the truly suffixed and pseudo-suffixed conditions compared to the non-suffixed condition, thus providing evidence for the form-based activation of embedded stems during reading. The suffix data also showed a dissociation in the SSVEP response between suffixes and non-suffixes with an additional activation boost for truly suffixed words. The observed differences are discussed in the context of current models of complex word recognition.

Highlights

The present study used steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) to examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of reading morphologically complex words and test the neurophysiological activation pattern elicited by stems and suffixes
These event-related brain potentials (ERPs) results demonstrate that the initial stages of complex word recognition are based on a purely structural form or morphological analysis, whereas the later processing stages are more likely to be influenced by s emantics[18]
We estimated that the trajectories of the SSVEP responses to stems were characterized by up to two turning points, and could be modelled with third-order polynomials, while the trajectories for suffixes were characterized by one turning point, and could be modelled with two-order polynomials

Summary

Introduction

The present study used steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) to examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of reading morphologically complex words and test the neurophysiological activation pattern elicited by stems and suffixes. One of the key breakthroughs in the masked morphological priming literature[4,5,8] has been the finding that words with a true morphological structure prime their embedded stems (farmer-farm), and words with a morphological pseudo-structure (corner-corn) No such priming is seen with non-affixed words (cashew-cash), which rules out the possibility that the observed priming effects are due to the orthographic overlap between the prime and the target. This widely replicated r esult[3] provides evidence for a fast-acting segmentation mechanism that skilled readers use to identify morphological structure, rapidly and independently of semantics. These ERP results demonstrate that the initial stages of complex word recognition are based on a purely structural form or morphological analysis, whereas the later processing stages are more likely to be influenced by s emantics[18]

Objectives

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Conclusion