Nonword Processing Research Articles

Word Type and Frequency Effects on Lexical Decisions Are Process-dependent and Start Early.

When encountering letter strings, we rapidly determine whether they are words. The speed of such lexical decisions (LDs) is affected by word frequency. Apart from influencing late, decision-related, processing stages, frequency has also been shown to affect very early stages, and even the processing of nonwords. We developed a detailed account of the different frequency effects involved in LDs by (1) dividing LDs into processing stages using a combination of hidden semi-Markov models and multivariate pattern analysis applied to EEG data and (2) using generalized additive mixed models to investigate how the effect of continuous word and nonword frequency differs between these stages. We discovered six stages shared between word types, with the fifth stage consisting of two substages for pseudowords only. In the earliest stages, visual processing was completed faster for frequent words, but took longer for word-like nonwords. Later stages involved an orthographic familiarity assessment followed by an elaborate decision process, both affected differently by frequency. We therefore conclude that frequency indeed affects all processes involved in LDs and that the magnitude and direction of these effects differ both by process and word type.

Phonological neighbors cooperate during spoken-sentence processing: Evidence from a nonword detection task.

We used a novel nonword detection task to examine the lexical competition principle postulated in most models of spoken word recognition. To do so, in Experiment 1 we presented sequences of spoken words with half of the sequences containing a nonword, and the target nonword (i.e., press a response key whenever you detect a nonword in the sequence) could either be phonologically related (a phonological neighbor) or unrelated to the immediately preceding word. We reasoned that the reactivation of a phonological neighbor during target nonword processing should delay the moment at which a nonword decision can be made. Contrary to our hypothesis, participants were faster at detecting nonwords when they were preceded by a phonological neighbor compared with an unrelated word. In Experiment 2, an inhibitory effect of phonological relatedness on nonword decisions was observed in a classic priming situation using the same set of related and unrelated word-nonword pairs. We discuss the implications of these findings in regard to the main models of spoken word recognition, and conclude that our specific experimental set-up with phonological neighbors embedded in spoken sentences is more sensitive to cooperative interactions between co-activated sublexical representations than lexical competition between co-activated lexical representations, with the latter being modulated by whether or not the words compete for the same slot in time.

Beyond quantity of experience: Exploring the role of semantic consistency in Chinese character knowledge.

Most printed Chinese words are compounds built from the combination of meaningful characters. Yet, there is a poor understanding of how individual characters contribute to the recognition of compounds. Using a megastudy of Chinese word recognition (Tse et al., 2017), we examined how the lexical decision of existing and novel Chinese compounds was influenced by two properties of individual characters: family size (the number of distinct words that embed a character) and family semantic consistency (the average semantic relatedness between a character and all words containing it). Results revealed that both variables influence word and nonword processing: Words are recognized more quickly and accurately when they contain characters that occur frequently across different words and that make consistent meaningful contributions to those words, while nonwords containing those types of characters are rejected more slowly. These findings suggest that the learning of individual characters is based not only on the quantity of experience with them but also on the reliability of the semantic information they communicate. In addition, readers are able to generalize character knowledge acquired from previous word experiences to their daily encounters with familiar and unfamiliar words. We close by discussing how word experience shapes character knowledge when different ways of calculating family properties are considered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Development of Phonological Processing Test in Marathi (PPT-M) for Young Adults

IntroductionCentral auditory processing and phonological processing are interconnected as they both involve successful intertwining of auditory, cognitive, and language mechanisms. A deficit in the ability to process spoken language can result in CAPD. The aim of this study was to develop a test (PPT-M) to evaluate the level of phonological processing among young Marathi-speaking adults. A second aim was to investigate the difference in the phonological processing of words and non-words.Material and methodsThe PPT-M test included three subtests: phonological awareness, phonological working memory, and phonological retrieval. For the awareness and memory tasks, the stimulus was words and non-words, whereas rapid automatised naming (RAN) of digits and letters was used to assess the retrieval task. Data was collected from 40 young adults aged 18 to 25 years. We recorded accuracy and time taken to complete the tasks.ResultsResults of item analysis suggest that the developed tool has good reliability. No significant gender effect was observed. A stimulus effect was observed for the phonological processing test.ConclusionsThe Phonological Processing Test in Marathi (PPT-M) has good internal consistency and reliability. Words and non-words are processed differently and the time required to respond to both varies. There were no gender differences. In the phonological awareness test, blending and segmentation tasks required more time to complete and had reduced accuracy.

Decoding the temporal dynamics of spoken word and nonword processing from EEG

The efficiency of spoken word recognition is essential for real-time communication. There is consensus that this efficiency relies on an implicit process of activating multiple word candidates that compete for recognition as the acoustic signal unfolds in real-time. However, few methods capture the neural basis of this dynamic competition on a msec-by-msec basis. This is crucial for understanding the neuroscience of language, and for understanding hearing, language and cognitive disorders in people for whom current behavioral methods are not suitable. We applied machine-learning techniques to standard EEG signals to decode which word was heard on each trial and analyzed the patterns of confusion over time. Results mirrored psycholinguistic findings: Early on, the decoder was equally likely to report the target (e.g., baggage) or a similar sounding competitor (badger), but by around 500 msec, competitors were suppressed. Follow up analyses show that this is robust across EEG systems (gel and saline), with fewer channels, and with fewer trials. Results are robust within individuals and show high reliability. This suggests a powerful and simple paradigm that can assess the neural dynamics of speech decoding, with potential applications for understanding lexical development in a variety of clinical disorders.

A word or two about nonwords: Frequency, semantic neighborhood density, and orthography-to-semantics consistency effects for nonwords in the lexical decision task.

For the most part, the effects of lexical-distributional properties of words on visual word recognition are well-established. More uncertainty remains, however, about the influence of these properties on lexical processing for nonwords. The work presented here investigates the mechanisms that guide nonword processing through an analysis of lexical decision latencies for 18,547 words and 27,079 nonwords in the British Lexicon Project (Keuleers, Lacey, Rastle, & Brysbaert, 2012) using piecewise generalized mixed models (pamms; Bender, Groll, & Scheipl, 2018; Bender & Scheipl, 2018; Bender, Scheipl, Hartl, Day, & Küchenhoff, 2018). The pamm analysis of the data revealed 2 novel effects for nonwords in the lexical-decision task. First, whereas previous studies reported effects of base word frequency, the current study is the first to document a true nonword frequency effect. Second, we report effects of semantic neighborhood density and orthography-to-semantics consistency; not only for words, but also for nonwords. The effects of frequency, semantic neighborhood density and orthography-to-semantics consistency are facilitatory for words, but inhibitory for nonwords. The pamm analysis offers insights into the temporal development of the effects of lexical-distributional variables that are not available through more traditional analysis techniques and that shed new light on lexical processing in visual word recognition tasks. The implications of the reported results for models of visual word recognition are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Root and Pattern Effects in the Processing of Spoken Non-Words in Arabic

Words in Arabic are formed by mapping roots into patterns. Conducting a series of priming experiments, Boudelaa and Marslen-Wilson (2015, p. 955) have concluded that “root and word pattern morphemes function as abstract cognitive entities, operating independently of semantic factors and dissociable from possible phonological confounds” In the present study, plausibility of this conclusion is tested by investigating native Arabic speakers’ sensitivity to the presence of roots and patterns when processing spoken non-words in Arabic. 50 native Arabic speakers were given a 7-point word-likeness rating task. In this task, participants were asked to rate the word-likeness of 132 auditorily presented non-words in Arabic. 88 of these non-words were created by using real Arabic roots (e.g. /mlk/) that varied in their type and token frequencies and were mapped into two different types of pseudo patterns. Results have shown that native Arabic speakers are sensitive to the presence of roots in the non-words. Specifically, root type frequency had the strongest effect on subjects’ ratings of the non-words in both types of patterns. Implications of these findings to theories of the Arabic mental lexicon will be discussed.

Investigating pseudohomophone interference effects in young second-language learners

This study aimed to investigate phonological activation during silent word reading in French adolescents learning English as a second language (L2) at secondary school. Grade 6 and Grade 8 adolescents performed lexical decision tasks in English, where we compared processing of nonwords that were homophonic to real L2 words (i.e., pseudohomophones [PsHs]; e.g., grean) with that of orthographic control pseudowords (OCs; e.g., greun). In Experiment 1, PsHs were constructed so that they sounded like L2 words when using cross-language (L1) grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) only (e.g., grine), whereas PsHs were constructed with within-language (L2) GPCs (e.g., grean) in Experiment 2. Results showed a PsH interference effect as reflected by higher error rates and/or longer rejection times for PsHs compared with OCs whether using within-language or cross-language GPCs and at both grade levels. Evidence of this PsH interference effect was also observed in Experiment 3, which used PsHs that sounded like real L1 words when using L2 GPCs (e.g., droal for the French word drôle [funny in English]). We suggest that young L2 learners automatically activate both L1 and L2 GPCs during L2 silent reading in favor of strong cross-language interactions at the orthography-to-phonology interface. The results are discussed in relation to bilingual and developmental models on visual word recognition.

Disentangling cross-language orthographic neighborhood from markedness effects in L2 visual word recognition.

Previous research has reported that lexical access in bilinguals is language non-selective. In the present study, we explored the extent to which cross-language orthographic neighborhood size (N-size) effects, an index of language non-selectivity, should be dissociated from markedness effects, a sub-lexical orthographic variable referring to the degree of language- shared (unmarked) versus specific (marked) orthography. Two proficiency groups of French/English bilinguals performed an English (L2) lexical decision task with three word and non-word conditions: (1) English words with large French N-size/unmarked orthography (price), (2) small French N-size/unmarked orthography (drive), and (3) small French N-size/marked orthography (write). Evidence was found for orthographic markedness effects, albeit with a different pattern for word and non-word processing: while marked words were facilitated (responded to faster and more accurately) compared to unmarked words, the opposite pattern emerged for non-words. The pattern of results was comparable in both proficiency groups. No evidence emerged for the influence of first language (L1) neighborhood on L2 word or non-word processing. Thus, the results emphasize the need to integrate orthographic markedness as a relevant psycholinguistic variable in bilingual models of visual word recognition such as BIA/+ and to take it into account when investigating cross- language effects and the issue of language non-selectivity during visual word recognition.

Your ears never sleep: Auditory processing of nonwords during sleep in children

The auditory system in humans is the only sensory system that remains active for the continuous scanning and processing of information during sleep; however, little research has investigated this phenomenon. This study examined whether a brief exposure to auditory stimuli during sleep could result in memory traces indicated by event-related potentials (ERPs) in children. Twelve preschool children with normal hearing (2–5 years) were presented with three randomly selected nonwords (250 trials; 45–50 dB SPL) for 10 min during a regular nap (sleep state verified by EEG). After the nap, children’s memory for the stimuli was evaluated using a passive listening version of the “old/new” ERP paradigm that included three nonwords from the nap exposure (repeated condition, 45 trials), 3 new nonwords (sham repeated condition, 45 trials), and 45 other distinct nonwords (novel condition). Memory for the “nap exposure” words was reflected by increased positive amplitudes at midline parietal locations between 350 and 600 ms compared to the sham and novel conditions. This evidence of the memory trace for the auditory stimuli experienced during sleep can have implications for children with hearing loss who routinely remove their assistive devices during sleep. Preliminary results from children with cochlear implants will be discussed.

Localization of lesions in dysgraphia: An investigation in the frame of the dual-route model of spelling

Event Abstract Back to Event Localization of lesions in dysgraphia: An investigation in the frame of the dual-route model of spelling Claudio Luzzatti1*, Enrico Ripamonti2, Silvia Aggujaro3, Giuseppina Zonca4, Mirella Frustaci5 and Franco Molteni3 1 Università di Milano-Bicocca, Department of Psychology, Italy 2 IRCCS Fondazione don Carlo Gnocchi, Italy 3 Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Unit, Valduce Hospital, Costamasnaga, Italy 4 Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri, IRCCS Montescano, Italy 5 ASST Rhodense, Passirana di Rho, Italy The neural bases of spelling (and its impairments) are still uncertain, and recent evidence from functional neuroimaging studies is not coherent with the results of modern aphasiology. In this study we aim at disentangling the neural bases of spelling using an anatomo-clinical correlative procedure in a cohort of 35 aphasic patients. Participants were classified as surface, phonological, mixed, undifferentiated dysgraphics using a multiple single-case diagnostic procedure. We employed the subtraction technique and voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) to highlight the anatomical correlates of functional damage along the lexical and sublexical routes. We found that surface dysgraphia is predominantly associated with left temporo-occipital lesions, along with lesions occurring in the left angular gyrus and supramarginal gyrus, and with partial involvement of the insula and external capsule. Phonological dysgraphia ensues from lesions in the left insular cortex, and the underlying external capsule. The left superior longitudinal fasciculus, corona radiata, and both the left putamen and pallidum seem to be involved in the sublexical network. Moreover, the middle frontal gyrus (Exner’s center) is implicated in the processing of both words and nonwords, and, as classically suggested, might be related with the grapho-motor component of writing. Data are consistent with dual-route models of spelling, and with a crucial role of white-matter pathways (in particular the external capsule) in spelling along both the lexical and the sublexical route. Figure 1 References DeMarco, A. T., Wilson, S. M., Rising, K., Rapcsak, S. Z., & Beeson, P. M. (2017). Neural substrates of sublexical processing for spelling. Brain and Language, 164, 118-128. Luzzatti, C., Laiacona, M., Allamano, N., De Tanti, A., & Inzaghi, M. G. (1998). Writing disorders in Italian aphasic patients. A multiple single-case study of dysgraphia in a language with shallow orthography. Brain, 121, 1721-1734. Roeltgen, D. P., & Heilman, K. M. (1984). Lexical agraphia. Brain, 107, 811-827. Keywords: Acquired dysgraphia, Dual-route model of spelling, Neuroimaging, Surface dysgraphia, Phonological dysgraphia Conference: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting , Baltimore, United States, 5 Nov - 7 Nov, 2017. Presentation Type: poster presentation Topic: Consider for student award Citation: Luzzatti C, Ripamonti E, Aggujaro S, Zonca G, Frustaci M and Molteni F (2019). Localization of lesions in dysgraphia: An investigation in the frame of the dual-route model of spelling. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.223.00047 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 22 Apr 2017; Published Online: 25 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: Prof. Claudio Luzzatti, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Department of Psychology, Milano, Italy, claudio.luzzatti@unimib.it Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Claudio Luzzatti Enrico Ripamonti Silvia Aggujaro Giuseppina Zonca Mirella Frustaci Franco Molteni Google Claudio Luzzatti Enrico Ripamonti Silvia Aggujaro Giuseppina Zonca Mirella Frustaci Franco Molteni Google Scholar Claudio Luzzatti Enrico Ripamonti Silvia Aggujaro Giuseppina Zonca Mirella Frustaci Franco Molteni PubMed Claudio Luzzatti Enrico Ripamonti Silvia Aggujaro Giuseppina Zonca Mirella Frustaci Franco Molteni Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

The impact of attentional allocation capacities on nonword repetition in children with specific language impairment

This study aimed at directly assessing the hypothesis that attentional allocation capacity influences poor nonword repetition (NWR) performances in children with specific language impairment (SLI), using an attention demanding visual search task given concurrently with the NWR task. Twenty-one children with SLI, 21 typically developing children matched on age and 21 typically developing children matched on nonword span performed an immediate serial recall task of nonwords. The nonword lists were presented either alone or concurrently with the visual search task. Overall, results revealed a resource-sharing trade-off between the two tasks. Children with SLI were affected to the same extent as their span-matched controls by the necessity to allocate their attentional resources between the two tasks. Interestingly, nonword processing strategies seemed to differ among groups: age-matched controls allocated a larger part of their attentional resources to the encoding stage, whereas nonword recall was more attention demanding in children with SLI and younger controls.

Associations among nonword repetition and phonemic and vocabulary awareness: Implications for intervention

Prior research has shown possible relations among nonword repetition (NWR), vocabulary, and phonological processing skills in children with and without language impairment. This study was designed to investigate whether relationships would differ for students with primary language impairment (PLI) and typical language (TL) and whether they would shift across the school-age years, with implications for setting intervention priorities. NWR performance was compared for school-age students with PLI ( n = 36) and TL ( n = 36), matched for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and home language experience at three grade level bands (grades 1–2, 3–5, and 6–12). Both groups also completed tests of vocabulary awareness and phonological awareness to investigate them as predictors of performance on the NWR task. The two groups differed significantly with large effect sizes on the NWR task, as well as on vocabulary awareness and phonological awareness tasks. Regression analyses supported different predictive models for students with TL and PLI, with vocabulary awareness predicting significant variance in NWR for the TL students, but not for those with PLI. Conversely, phonological awareness, but not vocabulary awareness, predicted NWR for the students with PLI. Controlling for age did not change the regression models. Results support a view that phonological processing difficulties may function as a specific limiting factor for students with PLI, influencing their ability to learn new vocabulary as well as vice versa. These results have implications for designing treatment aimed explicitly at helping children connect sublexical aspects of word structure knowledge with word meaning.

Word and nonword processing without meaning support in Korean-speaking children with and without hyperlexia

Hyperlexia is a syndrome of reading without meaning in individuals who otherwise have pronounced cognitive and language deficits. The present study investigated the quality of word representation and the effects of deficient semantic processing on word and nonword reading of Korean children with hyperlexia; their performances were compared to those of typical children matched for their word-recognition abilities. In Study 1, both groups of children were tested on their ability to read word-like nonwords (nonsense words that are generated from real words). Typical children showed slower read-aloud times when reading word-like nonwords compared to real words; children with hyperlexia showed no significant differences between the two types of words. These results suggest that typical children were disrupted by information from the baseword (e.g., ‘self’) on which the nonword is based (e.g., ‘melf’) when reading word-like nonwords, whereas children with hyperlexia were not interrupted by such information. In Study 2, the same two groups were compared on their word reading performances between semantically related picture-word versus semantically unrelated picture-word pairs. Typical children read more slowly the words preceded by semantically related pictures than the words preceded by semantically unrelated pictures; children with hyperlexia read both picture-word pairs at a comparable rate. These results imply that, during word reading, typical children were affected by semantic information from the preceding picture unlike children with hyperlexia who were not influenced by the preceding semantic information. These findings from Study 1 and Study 2 are discussed in relation to the connectionist models of reading.

An fMRI study of visual lexical decision in patients with schizophrenia and clinical high-risk individuals

Disturbances in semantic and phonological aspects of language processing are indicated in patients with schizophrenia, and in high-risk individuals for schizophrenia. To uncover neural correlates of the disturbances, a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study using a visual lexical decision task in block design reported less leftward lateralization in the inferior frontal cortices, in patients with schizophrenia and individuals with high genetic risk for psychosis compared with normal control subjects. However, to our knowledge, no previous study has investigated contrasts between word and non-word processing that allow dissociation between semantic and phonological processing using event-related design visual lexical decision fMRI tasks in subjects with ultra-high-risk for psychosis (UHR) and patients with schizophrenia. In the current study, 20 patients with schizophrenia, 11 UHR, and 20 demographically matched controls underwent lexical decision fMRI tasks. Compared with controls, both schizophrenia and UHR groups showed significantly decreased activity in response to non-words compared with words in the inferior frontal regions. Additionally, decreased leftward lateralization in the non-word compared with word activity contrast was found in subjects with UHR compared with controls, which was not evident in patients with schizophrenia. The present findings suggest neural correlates of difficulty in phonological aspects of language processing during non-word processing in contrast to word, which at least partially commonly underlies the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and UHR. Together with a previous study in genetic high-risk subjects, the current results also suggest that reduced functional lateralization in the language-related frontal cortex may be a vulnerability marker for schizophrenia. Furthermore, the current result may suggest that the genetic basis of psychosis is presumed to be related to the evolution of the language capacity characteristic of humans.

Effects of Intensive Phonomotor Treatment on Reading in Eight Individuals With Aphasia and Phonological Alexia

The aim of this study was to investigate effects of a multimodal treatment of phonology, phonomotor treatment, on the reading abilities of persons with aphasia (PWA) with phonological alexia. In a retrospective, single-group design, this study presents pre-, post-, and 3-months posttreatment data for 8 PWA with phonological alexia. Participants completed 60 hr of phonomotor treatment over 6 weeks. Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests and group effect sizes comparing pre-, immediately post-, and 3-months posttreatment performance on tests of phonological processing and reading were performed. Group data showed phonological processing and oral reading of real words and nonwords improved significantly posttreatment; these gains were maintained 3 months later. No group improvement was found for reading comprehension; however, one individual did show improvement immediately post- and 3-months posttreatment. This study provides support that phonomotor treatment is a viable approach to improve phonological processing and oral reading for PWA with phonological alexia. The lack of improvement with comprehension is inconsistent with prior work using similar treatments (Conway et al., 1998; Kendall et al., 2003). However, this difference can, in part, be accounted for by differences in variables, such as treatment intensity and frequency, outcome measures, and alexia severity.

Spatio-temporal processing of words and nonwords: Hemispheric laterality and acute alcohol intoxication

This study examined neurofunctional correlates of reading by modulating semantic, lexical, and orthographic attributes of letter strings. It compared the spatio-temporal activity patterns elicited by real words (RW), pseudowords, orthographically regular, pronounceable nonwords (PN) that carry no meaning, and orthographically illegal, nonpronounceable nonwords (NN). A double-duty lexical decision paradigm instructed participants to detect RW while ignoring nonwords and to additionally respond to words that refer to animals (AW). Healthy social drinkers (N=22) participated in both alcohol (0.6g/kg ethanol for men, 0.55g/kg for women) and placebo conditions in a counterbalanced design. Whole-head MEG signals were analyzed with an anatomically-constrained MEG method. Simultaneously acquired ERPs confirm previous evidence. Spatio-temporal MEG estimates to RW and PN are consistent with the highly replicable left-lateralized ventral visual processing stream. However, the PN elicit weaker activity than other stimuli starting at ~230ms and extending to the M400 (magnetic equivalent of N400) in the left lateral temporal area, indicating their reduced access to lexicosemantic stores. In contrast, the NN uniquely engage the right hemisphere during the M400. Increased demands on lexicosemantic access imposed by AW result in greater activity in the left temporal cortex starting at ~230ms and persisting through the M400 and response preparation stages. Alcohol intoxication strongly attenuates early visual responses occipito-temporally overall. Subsequently, alcohol selectively affects the left prefrontal cortex as a function of orthographic and semantic dimensions, suggesting that it modulates the dynamics of the lexicosemantic processing in a top-down manner, by increasing difficulty of semantic retrieval.

Stress processing in Mandarin and Korean second language learners of English

This study examined stress processing among Mandarin and Korean second language learners of English and English monolinguals. While both English and Mandarin have contrastive stress at the word-level, Korean does not. Consequently, Mandarin speakers may have an advantage over Korean speakers in English stress processing, even when matched for their general English proficiency. Experiment 1 assessed participants’ stress encoding ability for nonwords in a short-term memory task. Experiment 2 examined the effect of stress in online word recognition in a lexical decision task by manipulating word frequency, stress location, and vowel quality. The results of both experiments support an advantage for English and Mandarin speakers over Korean speakers in stress processing of real words and nonwords. Only Korean speakers’ lexical judgment of nonwords was modulated by word frequency, suggesting that they do not utilize stress in lexical access. Only English speakers’ word recognition was facilitated by vowel quality changes. These results suggest that the abilities of non-native speakers to process stress in their L2 is influenced by the characteristics of the stress systems in their L1.

Combined ERP/fMRI evidence for early word recognition effects in the posterior inferior temporal gyrus

Two brain regions with established roles in reading are the posterior middle temporal gyrus and the posterior fusiform gyrus (FG). Lesion studies have also suggested that the region located between them, the posterior inferior temporal gyrus (pITG), plays a central role in word recognition. However, these lesion results could reflect disconnection effects since neuroimaging studies have not reported consistent lexicality effects in pITG. Here we tested whether these reported pITG lesion effects are due to disconnection effects or not using parallel Event-related Potentials (ERP)/functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. We predicted that the Recognition Potential (RP), a left-lateralized ERP negativity that peaks at about 200–250 msec, might be the electrophysiological correlate of pITG activity and that conditions that evoke the RP (perceptual degradation) might therefore also evoke pITG activity. In Experiment 1, twenty-three participants performed a lexical decision task (temporally flanked by supraliminal masks) while having high-density 129-channel ERP data collected. In Experiment 2, a separate group of fifteen participants underwent the same task while having fMRI data collected in a 3T scanner. Examination of the ERP data suggested that a canonical RP effect was produced. The strongest corresponding effect in the fMRI data was in the vicinity of the pITG. In addition, results indicated stimulus-dependent functional connectivity between pITG and a region of the posterior FG near the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) during word compared to nonword processing. These results provide convergent spatiotemporal evidence that the pITG contributes to early lexical access through interaction with the VWFA.

Future Morphology? Summary of Visual Word Identification Effects Draws Attention to Necessary Efforts in Understanding Morphological Processing

Future Morphology? Summary of Visual Word Identification Effects Draws Attention to Necessary Efforts in Understanding Morphological Processing