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Real-time Functional Architecture of Visual Word Recognition

Whiting, Caroline ; Shtyrov, Yury LU and Marslen-Wilson, William (2015) In Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 27(2). p.246-265
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 150-230msec time frame, are shown to segment the visual input into linguistic substrings (words and morphemes) that trigger lexical... (More)
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 150-230msec 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. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
volume
27
issue
2
pages
246 - 265
publisher
MIT Press
external identifiers
  • wos:000346855200004
  • scopus:84920033637
  • pmid:25208741
ISSN
1530-8898
DOI
10.1162/jocn_a_00699
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Linguistics and Phonetics (015010003)
id
f4ee334d-a9b0-4087-8473-f98c50d9b597 (old id 5085015)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:59:05
date last changed
2023-11-10 10:08:00
@article{f4ee334d-a9b0-4087-8473-f98c50d9b597,
  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 150-230msec 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.}},
  author       = {{Whiting, Caroline and Shtyrov, Yury and Marslen-Wilson, William}},
  issn         = {{1530-8898}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{2}},
  pages        = {{246--265}},
  publisher    = {{MIT Press}},
  series       = {{Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience}},
  title        = {{Real-time Functional Architecture of Visual Word Recognition}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00699}},
  doi          = {{10.1162/jocn_a_00699}},
  volume       = {{27}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}