Real-time Functional Architecture of Visual Word Recognition

Abstract

Abstract■ Despite a century of research into visual word recognition, basic questions remain unresolved about the functional architecture of the process that maps visual inputs from orthographic analysis onto lexical form and meaning and about the units of analysis in terms of which these processes are conducted. Here we use magnetoencephalography, supported by a masked priming behavioral study, to address these questions using contrasting sets of simple (walk), complex (swimmer), and pseudo-complex (corner) forms. Early analyses of orthographic structure, detectable in bilateral posterior temporal regions within a 150-230 msec time frame, are shown to segment the visual input into linguistic substrings (words and morphemes) that trigger lexical access in left middle temporal locations from 300 msec. These are primarily feedforward processes and are not initially constrained by lexical-level variables. Lexical constraints become significant from 390 msec, in both simple and complex words, with increased processing of pseudowords and pseudo-complex forms. These results, consistent with morpho-orthographic models based on masked priming data, map out the real-time functional architecture of visual word recognition, establishing basic feedforward processing relationships between orthographic form, morphological structure, and lexical meaning. ■

Non-linear processing of a linear speech stream: The influence of morphological structure on the recognition of spoken Arabic words

“…Behavioural masked priming studies for example, which have somewhat dominated the field of enquiry, have found consistent evidence for the decomposition of words with regular suffixation and pseudo-suffixation (e.g., teacher-TEACH; corner-CORN; Rastle, Davis, & New, 2004; see Rastle & Davis, 2008 for a review). Corresponding results have also been established in the neurophysiological literature, supporting decomposition of regularly derived (e.g., Solomyak & Marantz, 2010) irregularly derived (e.g., Stockall & Marantz, 2006) and pseudo-suffixed forms (e.g., Lewis, Solomyak, & Marantz, 2011;Whiting, Shtyrov, & Marslen-Wilson, 2014). This body of research indicates that comprehending a visual word entails decomposition into constituent morphemes, which are linked to abstract representations in the lexicon for processing.…”

Information properties of morphologically complex words modulate brain activity during word reading

“…The effect seemed to stem from the descending slope following the peak of the evoked response. A similar result has previously been observed when contrasting consonant strings and (pseudo)words (Whiting et al, 2015). In that study, significant effects emerged between 155 and 230 ms, following the peak response centered at 150 ms.…”

“…However, several other studies have not been able to detect effects of morphology in the letter‐string response. Neither Vartiainen et al, (2009) using Finnish words or Whiting et al, (2015) using a similar contrast with English words found differences in the occipito‐temporal region between simple and complex words. Likewise, a study of morphological priming effects using French words by Cavalli et al (2016) did not reveal any significant effects of morphology in the posterior temporal cortex.…”

“…This activation has been linked to lexical, semantic, phonological and morphosyntactic analysis in word processing (Halgren et al, 2002; Helenius, Salmelin, & Connolly, 1998; Salmelin, 2007; Service, Helenius, Maury, & Salmelin, 2007). Several studies have also found the earliest evidence of morphological processing in this cortical area (Cavalli et al, 2016; Fruchter & Marantz, 2015; Vartiainen et al, 2009; Whiting, Shtyrov, & Marslen‐Wilson, 2015). …”

Spatiotemporal reorganization of the reading network in adult dyslexia

“…Morphologyspecific effects over and above form and meaning have been found along the ventral stream and in a vastly distributed network that includes left inferior and superior temporal gyri, left inferior frontal gyrus and left orbitofrontal gyrus (Cavalli, Colé, Badier, Zielinski, Chanoine, & Ziegler, 2016;Fruchter and Marantz, 2015;Whiting, Shtyrov, & Marslen-Wilson, 2015). In a recent MEG study using a primed lexical decision task, found evidence for a semantically driven morphological priming effect as early as 250 msec (i.e., M250) in left superior temporal gyrus.…”