Dataset Information

Influence of lexical status and orthographic similarity on the multi-voxel response of the visual word form area.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies demonstrated that a region in the left fusiform gyrus, often referred to as the 'visual word form area' (VWFA), is responsive to written words, but the precise functional role of VWFA remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the influence of orthographic similarity, and lexical factors on the multivoxel response patterns to written stimuli. Using high-resolution fMRI at 7 T, we compared the organization of visual word representations in VWFA to the organization in early visual cortex and a language region in the superior temporal gyrus. Sets of four letter words and pseudowords were presented, in which orthographic similarity was parametrically manipulated. We found that during a lexical decision task VWFA is responsive to the lexical status of a stimulus, but both real words and pseudowords were further processed in terms of orthographic similarity. In contrast, early visual cortex was only responsive to the visual aspects of the stimuli and in the left superior temporal gyrus there was an interaction between lexical status and orthography such that only real words were processed in terms of orthographic similarity. These findings indicate that VWFA represents the word/non-word status of letter strings as well as their orthographic similarity.

SUBMITTER: Baeck A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4412851 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Influence of lexical status and orthographic similarity on the multi-voxel response of the visual word form area.

Baeck Annelies A Kravitz Dwight D Baker Chris C Op de Beeck Hans P HP

NeuroImage 20150207

Previous studies demonstrated that a region in the left fusiform gyrus, often referred to as the 'visual word form area' (VWFA), is responsive to written words, but the precise functional role of VWFA remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the influence of orthographic similarity, and lexical factors on the multivoxel response patterns to written stimuli. Using high-resolution fMRI at 7 T, we compared the organization of visual word representations in VWFA to the organization in ...[more]

PMID: 25665965

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Project description:The present fMRI study investigated the effects of word-likeness of visual and auditory stimuli on activity along the ventral visual stream. In the context of a one-back task, we presented visual and auditory words, pseudowords, and artificial stimuli (i.e., false-fonts and reversed-speech, respectively). Main findings were regionally specific effects of word-likeness on activation in a left ventral occipitotemporal region corresponding to the classic localization of the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA). Specifically, we found an inverse word-likeness effect for the visual stimuli in the form of decreased activation for words compared to pseudowords which, in turn, elicited decreased activation compared to the artificial stimuli. For the auditory stimuli, we found positive word-likeness effects as both words and pseudowords elicited more activation than the artificial stimuli. This resulted from a marked deactivation in response to the artificial stimuli and no such deactivation for words and pseudowords. We suggest that the opposite effects of visual and auditory word-likeness on VWFA activation can be explained by assuming the involvement of visual orthographic memory representations. For the visual stimuli, these representations reduce the coding effort as a function of word-likeness. This results in highest activation to the artificial stimuli and least activation to words for which corresponding representations exist. The positive auditory word-likeness effects may result from activation of orthographic information associated with the auditory words and pseudowords. The view that the VWFA has a primarily visual function is supported by our findings of high activation to the visual artificial stimuli (which have no phonological or semantic associations) and deactivation to the auditory artificial stimuli. According to the phenomenon of cross-modal sensory suppression such deactivations during demanding auditory processing are expected in visual regions.

Dataset Information

Influence of lexical status and orthographic similarity on the multi-voxel response of the visual word form area.

Publications

Influence of lexical status and orthographic similarity on the multi-voxel response of the visual word form area.

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