Letter Representations Research Articles

The transformation of sensory to perceptual braille letter representations in the visually deprived brain.

Experience-based plasticity of the human cortex mediates the influence of individual experience on cognition and behavior. The complete loss of a sensory modality is among the most extreme such experiences. Investigating such a selective, yet extreme change in experience allows for the characterization of experience-based plasticity at its boundaries. Here, we investigated information processing in individuals who lost vision at birth or early in life by probing the processing of braille letter information. We characterized the transformation of braille letter information from sensory representations depending on the reading hand to perceptual representations that are independent of the reading hand. Using a multivariate analysis framework in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and behavioral assessment, we tracked cortical braille representations in space and time, and probed their behavioral relevance. We located sensory representations in tactile processing areas and perceptual representations in sighted reading areas, with the lateral occipital complex as a connecting 'hinge' region. This elucidates the plasticity of the visually deprived brain in terms of information processing. Regarding information processing in time, we found that sensory representations emerge before perceptual representations. This indicates that even extreme cases of brain plasticity adhere to a common temporal scheme in the progression from sensory to perceptual transformations. Ascertaining behavioral relevance through perceived similarity ratings, we found that perceptual representations in sighted reading areas, but not sensory representations in tactile processing areas are suitably formatted to guide behavior. Together, our results reveal a nuanced picture of both the potentials and limits of experience-dependent plasticity in the visually deprived brain.

Touch to text: Spatiotemporal evolution of braille letter representations in blind readers.

Visual deprivation does not silence the visual cortex, which is responsive to auditory, tactile, and other nonvisual tasks in blind persons. However, the underlying functional dynamics of the neural networks mediating such crossmodal responses remain unclear. Here, using braille reading as a model framework to investigate these networks, we presented sighted (N=13) and blind (N=12) readers with individual visual print and tactile braille alphabetic letters, respectively, during MEG recording. Using time-resolved multivariate pattern analysis and representational similarity analysis, we traced the alphabetic letter processing cascade in both groups of participants. We found that letter representations unfolded more slowly in blind than in sighted brains, with decoding peak latencies ∼200 ms later in braille readers. Focusing on the blind group, we found that the format of neural letter representations transformed within the first 500 ms after stimulus onset from a low-level structure consistent with peripheral nerve afferent coding to high-level format reflecting pairwise letter embeddings in a text corpus. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the transformation suggest that the processing cascade proceeds from a starting point in somatosensory cortex to early visual cortex and then to inferotemporal cortex. Together our results give insight into the neural mechanisms underlying braille reading in blind persons and the dynamics of functional reorganization in sensory deprivation.

Letters away from the looking glass: Developmental trajectory of mirrored and rotated letter processing within words.

Discrimination of reversible mirrored letters (e.g., d and b) poses a challenge when learning to read as it requires overcoming mirror invariance, an evolutionary-old perceptual tendency of processing mirror images as equivalent. The present study investigated when, in reading development, mirror-image discrimination becomes automatic during visual word recognition. The developmental trajectory of masked priming effects was investigated from 2nd to 6th grade and in adults, by manipulating letter type (nonreversible; reversible) and prime condition (control; identity; mirrored; rotated). Standardized identity priming increased along reading development. Beginning readers showed mirror invariance during reversible and nonreversible letter processing. A mirror cost (slower word recognition in mirrored-letter than identity prime condition) was found by 5th-grade but only for reversible letters. By 6th grade, orthographic processing was no longer captive of mirror invariance. A multiple linear regression showed that letter representations, but not phonological processes or age, were a reliable predictor of the rise of mirror-image discrimination in 2nd-4th-graders. The present results suggest a protracted development of automatic mirror-image discrimination during orthographic processing, contingent upon the quality of abstract letter representations. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We traced the developmental trajectory of mirrored-letter and rotated-letter priming effects (e.g., ibea and ipea as primes of IDEA) in visual word recognition. Beginning readers (2nd-4th-graders) showed mirror invariance and plane-rotation sensitivity in orthographic processing, thus still being susceptible to the perceptual biases in charge in object recognition. A mirror cost was found in 5th-graders but only for reversible letters; orthographic processing was no longer captive of mirror invariance by 6th-grade. The automation of mirror-image discrimination during orthographic processing depends on the quality of letter representations but not on phonological processes or age.

Asymetric Event-Related Potential Priming Effects Between English Letters and American Sign Language Fingerspelling Fonts.

Letter recognition plays an important role in reading and follows different phases of processing, from early visual feature detection to the access of abstract letter representations. Deaf ASL-English bilinguals experience orthography in two forms: English letters and fingerspelling. However, the neurobiological nature of fingerspelling representations, and the relationship between the two orthographies, remains unexplored. We examined the temporal dynamics of single English letter and ASL fingerspelling font processing in an unmasked priming paradigm with centrally presented targets for 200 ms preceded by 100 ms primes. Event-related brain potentials were recorded while participants performed a probe detection task. Experiment 1 examined English letter-to-letter priming in deaf signers and hearing non-signers. We found that English letter recognition is similar for deaf and hearing readers, extending previous findings with hearing readers to unmasked presentations. Experiment 2 examined priming effects between English letters and ASL fingerspelling fonts in deaf signers only. We found that fingerspelling fonts primed both fingerspelling fonts and English letters, but English letters did not prime fingerspelling fonts, indicating a priming asymmetry between letters and fingerspelling fonts. We also found an N400-like priming effect when the primes were fingerspelling fonts which might reflect strategic access to the lexical names of letters. The studies suggest that deaf ASL-English bilinguals process English letters and ASL fingerspelling differently and that the two systems may have distinct neural representations. However, the fact that fingerspelling fonts can prime English letters suggests that the two orthographies may share abstract representations to some extent.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A MATHEMATICAL ENCRYPTION MODEL FOR THE CENTRAL KURDISH FONT BASED ON UNICODE

This research focuses on the development of encryption algorithms for the Kurdish language, specifically tailored to the Kurdish alphabet. With the rapid growth and digital advancements in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, there is a pressing need for accurate encryption methods that can be applied to Kurdish texts in administration and digital governance. To address this need, a mathematical encryption model is proposed, leveraging the Kurdish central font supported by Microsoft Windows to ensure compatibility between sender and receiver. The model utilizes the Unicode representation of Kurdish letters to calculate offset and mod values accurately. The effectiveness of the proposed model is validated through its implementation using the Caesar cipher method. Computation tasks are performed using Excel, while the encryption system is designed and programmed in C#. Extensive testing of the system with diverse key values demonstrates its high accuracy, achieving a high success rate in encrypting Kurdish texts. This research contributes significantly to the field of encryption for the Kurdish language, providing a scientific framework for further advancements in this area.

Are goats chèvres, chévres, chēvres, and chevres? Unveiling the orthographic code of diacritical vowels.

An often overlooked but fundamental issue for any comprehensive model of visual-word recognition is the representation of diacritical vowels: Do diacritical and nondiacritical vowels share their abstract letter representations? Recent research suggests that the answer is "yes" in languages where diacritics indicate suprasegmental information (e.g., lexical stress, as in cámara ['ka.ma.ɾa] camera; Spanish), but "no" in languages where diacritics indicate segmental information such as a different phoneme (e.g., the German vowels ä /ɛ/ and a /a/). Here we examined this issue in French, a language that contains a complex set of diacritical vowels (e.g., for the letter e: é, è, ê, and ë). In Experiment 1, using a semantic categorization task, we compared the word identification times to intact diacritical words (e.g., chèvre, goat in English) with a condition with omitted diacritics (chevre). Results showed that the two conditions behaved similarly. In Experiments 2-4, we compared the intact diacritical words with a condition containing a mismatching diacritic, either existing in French (e.g., chévre, chêvre) or not (the macron sign, as in chēvre). We only found a reading cost when replacing the diacritic with an existing one. In Experiments 5-6, we compared the semantic categorization times to intact nondiacritical words (e.g., cheval, horse in English) versus a condition with an added diacritic, either existing (chèval) or not (chēval). We found a reading cost for the words with the added diacritical mark in both cases. We discuss how models of visual-word recognition can be modified to represent diacritical vowels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Letter-similarity effects in braille word recognition.

Letter-similarity effects are elusive with common words in lexical decision experiments: viotin and viocin (base word: violin) produce similar error rates and rejection latencies. However, they are robust for stimuli often presented with the same appearance (e.g., misspelled logotypes such as anazon [base word: amazon] produce more errors and longer latencies than atazon). Here, we examine whether letter-similarity effects occur in reading braille. The rationale is that braille is a writing system in which the sensory information is processed in qualitatively different ways than in visual reading: the form of the word's letters is highly stable due to the standardisation of braille and the sensing of characters is transient and somewhat serial. Hence, we hypothesised that the letter similarity effect would be sizable with misspelled common words in braille, unlike the visual modality. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a lexical decision experiment with blind adult braille readers. Pseudowords were created by replacing one letter of a word with a tactually similar or dissimilar letter in braille following a tactile similarity matrix (e.g., [ausor] vs [aucor]; baseword: [autor]). Bayesian linear mixed-effects models showed that the responses to tactually similar pseudowords were less accurate than to tactually dissimilar pseudowords-the response times (RTs) showed a parallel trend. This finding supports the idea that, when reading braille, the mapping of input information onto abstract letter representations is done through a noisy channel.

General object-based features account for letter perception.

After years of experience, humans become experts at perceiving letters. Is this visual capacity attained by learning specialized letter features, or by reusing general visual features previously learned in service of object categorization? To explore this question, we first measured the perceptual similarity of letters in two behavioral tasks, visual search and letter categorization. Then, we trained deep convolutional neural networks on either 26-way letter categorization or 1000-way object categorization, as a way to operationalize possible specialized letter features and general object-based features, respectively. We found that the general object-based features more robustly correlated with the perceptual similarity of letters. We then operationalized additional forms of experience-dependent letter specialization by altering object-trained networks with varied forms of letter training; however, none of these forms of letter specialization improved the match to human behavior. Thus, our findings reveal that it is not necessary to appeal to specialized letter representations to account for perceptual similarity of letters. Instead, we argue that it is more likely that the perception of letters depends on domain-general visual features.

Attentional engagement in letter-like shape learning.

Recent studies suggest that letter representations are based on a multimodal network linking the graphic motor programs acquired through handwriting to the visual representations. Moreover, the graphic motor programs are assumed to contribute to letter recognition. This assumption is based on the finding that learning symbols through handwriting leads to better recognition than learning through typing. However, in addition to the type of motor activity engaged, handwriting and typing might also differ in other aspects. Indeed, handwriting requires a more detailed visual analysis of the target symbols, which may account for its learning advantage (Seyll et al., 2020). Moreover, different learning methods might differ in attentional engagement. The present study aimed at measuring and comparing the attentional demands incurred by different learning settings. To this purpose, a dual-task probe paradigm was used: participants had to respond as quickly as possible to auditory probes while learning symbols either through handwriting, typing, or composition-a method requiring detailed visual analysis without graphomotor activity. Reaction times to the probes were used as index of the attentional engagement required by the learning methods. Handwriting led to longer reaction times than typing and composition, suggesting that it requires more attention than both other learning methods. Thus, the recognition advantage of handwriting over typing might be partly attributable to attentional engagement during learning. In addition, the advantage of composition over typing, in the absence of differences in the attentional task, confirms the unique importance of detailed visual analysis in symbol memorization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Does adding an accent mark hinder lexical access? Evidence from Spanish

Recent research has shown that omitting the accent mark in a Spanish word, which is a language in which these diacritics only indicate lexical stress, does not cause a delay in lexical access (e.g., cárcel [prison] ≈ carcel; cárcel-CÁRCEL ≈ carcel-CÁRCEL). This pattern has been interpreted as accented and nonaccented vowels sharing the abstract letter representations in Spanish. However, adding an accent mark to a nonaccented Spanish word appears to produce a reading cost in masked priming paradigms (e.g., féliz-FELIZ [happy] > feliz-FELIZ). We examined whether adding an accent mark to a non accented Spanish word slows down lexical access in two semantic categorization experiments to solve this puzzle. We added an accent mark either on the stressed syllable (Experiment 1, e.g., cébra for the word cebra [zebra]) or an unstressed syllable (Experiment 2, e.g., cebrá). While effect sizes were small in magnitude, adding an accent mark produced a cost relative to the intact words, especially when the accent mark was added on an unstressed syllable (cebrá > cebra). These findings favor the view that letter identity and (to a lesser extent) accent mark information are encoded during word recognition in Spanish. We also examined the practical implications of these results.

Do Diacritics Entail an Early Processing Cost in the Absence of Abstract Representations? Evidence from Masked Priming in English.

Using the masked priming technique, word recognition experiments in various languages have shown slower response times for a target word like NEVEU (nephew, in French) when preceded by a diacritical prime like néveu than by the identity prime neveu. The most common account of this effect is linguistic: diacritical and non-diacritical vowels (e.g., é and e) activate different letter representations (e.g., compare neveu /nə.vø/ vs. néveu /ne.vø/). However, another explanation is that the reduced effectiveness of the diacritical primes is merely due to the perceptual salience of accent marks in the first moments of word processing. Here, we designed a masked priming experiment that tested this perceptual salience account by comparing the effectiveness of diacritical versus non-diacritical primes in a language where diacritics have no linguistic value, namely, English (e.g., nórth-NORTH vs. north-NORTH). We found a small but reliable cost due to the diacritical primes, thus revealing that perceptual salience reduced the effectiveness of the primes. However, the effect sizes were substantially smaller than in the experiments in languages with diacritical marks, thus suggesting that the néveu-NEVEU versus neveu-NEVEU difference relies on both linguistic and perceptual sources.

Feasibility Study of Persian Irony Functions in Iranian Conceptual Art

Persian language in Iranian art has had many Functions a long time ago. This function has been revealed sometimes in imagery form for literary fiction in Iranian painting, and sometimes in ultra-modern in form of representation of words, letters and sentences in the works of Iranian contemporary artists, including Ghahve-Kaneh and Sagha- Kane style painting. After the 70s, line drawing also paid attention to values of words and letters too, among them some conceptual artists, with the pursuit practical background of language make different representations from words and letters in their works. What is necessary is that, Persian language is a treasury which has many capabilities for transmission of ideas and concepts. As for contemporary conceptual art, we can see that these capabilities have been neglected. This means that with Compilation of conceptual art and analysis of them. The question is, how can Persian allusions be involved in the structure of the creation of conceptual art? The findings of this descriptive-analytical study show that by doing this, with change substance in language, it means, word to art essence, ready one, produce, which follow construction of idea transmission of conceptual art, non-skillful being predetermination programing, non-subjectivity, also evidence and briefness.

COMMUNICATIVE RELATIONS ODESSA HISTORIAN S. I.-YA. BOROVOY WITH KYIV COLLEAGUES I. D. BOYKО AND I. O. GURZHII

The article is devoted to the representation of letters of well-known Kyiv historians I. O. Gurzhii and I. D. Boyko to the Odessa colleague S. I.-Ya. Borovоy. These letters for the period of the first half of the 1960’s are stored in the State Archives of Odessa region, in the fund of personal origin of Professor S. I.-Ya. Borovоy. The letters are a valuable source for studying the scientific biography and communication network of historians of the 1960s. Little-known archival documents were first published – correspondence with the Odessa historian of Kyiv colleagues who worked in various structures of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the 1940s and 1960s. These sources reflect their activities and connections with a colleague from Odesa. The purpose of this archeographic exploration is to update little-known archival sources, which significantly supplement the information about cooperation and personal contacts between Odessa and Kyiv historians, whose biographies and certain aspects of their scientific activity are revealed in the comments. The letters shed light on their scientific plans and creative laboratory of correspondents, views on social and cultural issues. The article examines the informative possibilities of letters from leading Kyiv historians of this period on the situation in historical science and the socio-cultural situation in the country as a whole. The epistles of these historians are of undeniable interest in the history of Soviet historiography, in particular, and the history of historical science. The provided materials reflect separate fragments of professional activity of two scientists and their personal and scientific communicative communications with some representatives of the Soviet scientific community. Epistles allow to reproduce some details of the history of Soviet historical science, certain episodes of the biography of a number of Soviet scientists of those years against the background of the events of the socio-cultural environment. The letters of scientists, despite the presence of powerful personal qualities, are characterized by high organization of the text, the ability to see the main things in events, extreme clarity in assessing the situation and expressing their opinions. The publication of the letters is accompanied by fairly complete comments on their content and introduces into scientific circulation a valuable historical source.

Do the colors of your letters depend on your language? Language-dependent and universal influences on grapheme-color synesthesia in seven languages

Grapheme-color synesthetes experience graphemes as having a consistent color (e.g., “N is turquoise”). Synesthetes’ specific associations (which letter is which color) are often influenced by linguistic properties such as phonetic similarity, color terms (“Y is yellow”), and semantic associations (“D is for dog and dogs are brown”). However, most studies of synesthesia use only English-speaking synesthetes. Here, we measure the effect of color terms, semantic associations, and non-linguistic shape-color associations on synesthetic associations in Dutch, English, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish. The effect size of linguistic influences (color terms, semantic associations) differed significantly between languages. In contrast, the effect size of non-linguistic influences (shape-color associations), which we predicted to be universal, indeed did not differ between languages. We conclude that language matters (outcomes are influenced by the synesthete’s language) and that synesthesia offers an exceptional opportunity to study influences on letter representations in different languages.

The Effects of Handwriting Experience on Literacy Learning

Previous research indicates that writing practice may be more beneficial than nonmotor practice for letter learning. Here, we report a training study comparing typing, visual, and writing learning conditions in adults (N = 42). We investigated the behavioral consequences of learning modality on literacy learning and evaluated the nature of the learned letter representations. Specifically, the study addressed three questions. First, are the benefits of handwriting practice due to motor learning per se or to other incidental factors? Second, do the benefits generalize to untrained tasks? And third, does handwriting practice lead to learning and strengthening only of motor representations or of other types of representations as well? Our results clearly show that handwriting compared with nonmotor practice produces faster learning and greater generalization to untrained tasks than previously reported. Furthermore, only handwriting practice leads to learning of both motor and amodal symbolic letter representations.

Edition der Kulmer Stadtbücher

The strategic plan of the Copernicus-Vereinigung, a scholarly organisation devoted to the regional history of West Prussia, to edit the four yet unpublished civic registers (Stadtbuch) out of a total of ten surviving from late-medieval Kulm (Chełmno), was motivated to no small degree by the intention of demonstrating that Prussia constituted an integral part of the Hanse. However, the editorial principles employed by the editors of the six volumes which have appeared hitherto were anything but unitary. Hence, it is greatly to be desired that future editors orient themselves according to modern editorial guidelines. Moreover, there is much work to be done on standardizing seemingly minor technical matters: the capitalization of words, the typographical representation of Siamese-twin letters (when to transcribe a scribal mark as ‘sz’ and when as ‘ß’), superimposed letters (ue) and redundant double consonants, on the abbreviations for various currencies and the description of the scribal hands. This article is intended as a contribution towards generating a common set of principles – a standard tool-kit, if you will – for editing Hanseatic civic registers.

How does rapid automatized naming influence orthographic knowledge?

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) is a strong predictor of reading fluency across languages, and some researchers have attributed this to the contribution of RAN to the development of orthographic knowledge, which is predictive of reading fluency. However, to date, it remains unclear whether RAN (alphanumeric and nonalphanumeric) predicts orthographic knowledge (OK) and what skills may mediate their relation. To examine the RAN–OK relations, we assessed 114 Grade 3 Spanish-speaking Mexican children (58 girls; Mage = 7.9 years, SD = 0.3) on RAN (objects and digits), orthographic knowledge (lexical and sublexical; accuracy and response time), speed of processing, multi-element processing, phonemic awareness, and reading fluency. Path analyses showed first that, OK (both lexical and sublexical) partly mediated the effects of RAN on reading fluency. Second, multiple mediation analyses showed an indirect effect of both RAN tasks on lexical and sublexical OK through phonological awareness. In view of Ehri’s amalgamation hypothesis and Share’s self-teaching hypothesis, our findings suggest that RAN may reflect, in part, the speed with which the phonological representations of letters are accessed and retrieved, which subsequently influences how quickly orthographic representations can be formed and accessed.

Morse Code Receiver On Invisible Light Using Background Subtraction Method

Morse code is a system of representation of letters, numbers, punctuation marks and signals using a code of dots and lines that are arranged to represent certain characters in the alphabet or certain signals (signs) that are agreed upon for use throughout the world was studied by nilas[1]. This code was coined by Samuel F.B. Morse and Alfred Vail in 1835 was studied by ming[2]. This research aims at how to apply the Background Subtraction method in the design of the morse sign language receiver in the invisible light. Build an Android-based application for recognition of Morse sign language by keeping messages sent using Morse sign language secret through infrared light from the sight of those who can read the message. From the results of the tests that have been carried out, it is concluded that the level of accuracy of testing using the False Match Rate (FMR) obtained a success percentage of 65% from the 26 character data tested. From the 26 character data tested, it was obtained data with the number of characters that were successfully counted correctly, namely 17 characters, while the character data that failed to be counted was 9 characters with a detection result of 26 characters.

The impact of graphic motor programs and detailed visual analysis on letter-like shape recognition

Recent research suggests that graphic motor programs acquired through writing are part of letter representations and contribute to their recognition. Indeed, learning new letter-like shapes through handwriting gave rise to better recognition than learning through typing on a keyboard. However, handwriting and typing do not differ solely by the nature of the motor activity. Handwriting requires a detailed visual analysis in order to reproduce all elements of the target shape. In contrast, typing relies on visual discrimination between graphic forms and does not require such detailed processing. The aim of the present study was to disentangle the respective contribution of visual analysis and graphomotor knowledge. We compared handwriting and typing to learning by composition, a new method which requires a detailed visual analysis of the target without the specific graphomotor activity. Participants composed the target symbols by selecting elementary features from the set displayed on the screen and dragging them in the appropriate position. In four experiments, adult participants learned sets of symbols through handwriting, typing or composition. Recognition tests were administered immediately after the learning phase and again two to three weeks later. Taken together, the results of the four experiments confirm the importance of the detailed visual analysis and provide no evidence for an influence of motor knowledge.

Low Energy Conformations for Endogenous Mu-Receptor-Specific Peptides.

We have computed the low energy minima for the two endomorphin peptides, N-acetyl-Tyr-Pro-Trp-Phe-NHCH3 (endomorphin 1) and Tyr-Pro-Phe-Phe-NHCH3 (endomorphin 2) in aqueous solution. These peptides block pain without inducing the harmful side effects of the opiates that bind to the same mu opiate receptor but have short half lives. From over 1000 starting conformations for each peptide, we find less than 200 low energy structures whose conformational energies were ≤ 5kcal/mole of the energy of the global minimum. The most probable conformations calculated using the Boltzmann distribution for both peptides were similar to one another. Using the letter representation for backbone conformational states, these most probable structures were D A E E for endomorphin 1 and E A E E for endomorphin 2. Both of these structures form reverse turns at Pro 2-Trp (Phe) 3 resulting in the juxtaposition of the aromatic rings of Tyr 1 and Phe 4. The Trp residue of endomorphin 1 points to the back of the reverse turn. These features may be useful in the design of non-peptide analogues that will have longer half-lives than the peptides.