Evidence for highly selective neuronal tuning to whole words in the "visual word form area".
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Glezer LS
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2706007 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Apr
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Evidence for highly selective neuronal tuning to whole words in the "visual word form area".
Glezer Laurie S LS Jiang Xiong X Riesenhuber Maximilian M
Neuron 20090401 2
Theories of reading have posited the existence of a neural representation coding for whole real words (i.e., an orthographic lexicon), but experimental support for such a representation has proved elusive. Using fMRI rapid adaptation techniques, we provide evidence that the human left ventral occipitotemporal cortex (specifically the "visual word form area," VWFA) contains a representation based on neurons highly selective for individual real words, in contrast to current theories that posit a s ...[more]
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