Implicit learning deficits in dyslexic adults: An fMRI study

Menghini, Deny; Hagberg, Gisela E.; Caltagirone, Carlo; Petrosini, Laura; Vicari, Stefano

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.08.024

Cited by 140 publications

(139 citation statements)

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“…Therefore, automatization problems are only evident in complex tasks, double-task conditions, or when fast processing of stimuli is required. Various neuroimaging studies have revealed a lower cerebellar activity in dyslexic people, and it has been suggested that this lower activation may explain the automatization problems detected (Fawcett & Nicolson, 1999;Menghini et al, 2006;Nicolson, Fawcett & Dean, 2001;Nicolson & Fawcett, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several recent studies have observed a deficit in sequence learning in both children (Vicari et al, 2005;Vicari, Marotta, Menghini, Molinari & Petrosini, 2003) and adults with dyslexia (Howard, Howard, Japikse & Eden, 2006;Stoodley, Harrison & Stein, 2006;Menghini, Hagberg, Caltagirone, Petrosini & Vicari, 2006). Yet, this evidence is not conclusive, since other studies have failed to obtain such a deficit in children (Menghini et al, 2010;Waber et al, 2003) and adults (Kelly, Griffiths & Frith, 2002;Rüsseler, Gerth & Münte, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A first major difference between the sequences used in different studies lies in the frequency of each type of event (for example, locations) within a given sequence. Sequences have been sometimes selected without balancing the frequency of each event (e.g., Menghini et al, 2006;Vicari et al, 2005), which may lead participants to respond based on the frequency of each stimulus rather than on the sequential structure (Reed & Johnson, 1994). A second major difference between studies producing contradictory results in dyslexic people lies in the relative complexity of the sequences.…”

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Dyslexic children show deficits in implicit sequence learning, but not in explicit sequence learning or contextual cueing

et al. 2010

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Dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling abilities. The absence of other high level cognitive deficits in the dyslexic population has led some authors to propose that non-strategical processes like implicit learning could be impaired in this population. Most studies have addressed this issue by using sequence learning tasks, but so far the results have not been conclusive. We test this hypothesis by comparing the performance of dyslexic children and good readers in both implicit and explicit versions of the sequence learning task, as well as in another implicit learning task not involving sequential information. The results showed that dyslexic children failed to learn the sequence when they were not informed about its presence (implicit condition). In contrast, they learned without significant differences in relation to the good readers group when they were encouraged to discover the sequence and to use it in order to improve their performance (explicit condition). Moreover, we observed that this implicit learning deficit was not extended to other forms of non-sequential, implicit learning such as contextual cueing. In this case, both groups showed similar implicit learning about the information provided by the visual context. These results help to clarify previous contradictory data, and they are discussed in relation to how the implicit sequence learning deficit could contribute to the understanding of dyslexia.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

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Dyslexic children show deficits in implicit sequence learning, but not in explicit sequence learning or contextual cueing

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“…Irregular brain morphology has also been detected in regions associated with executive functions and in subcortical areas (Galaburda, 1993;Hynd et al, 1995;Riccio & Hynd, 1996). Finally, observations made with magnetic resonance spectroscopy (Rae et al, 1998), positron emission tomography (Nicolson et al, 1999) and functional magnetic resonance (Menghini, Hagberg, Caltagirone, Petrosini, & Vicari, 2006) reported cerebellar dysfunction in dyslexic adults, thus suggesting that the cerebellum may be one of the key structures implicated in DD.…”

Section: Introduction Dmentioning

confidence: 95%

Developmental dyslexia and explicit long‐term memory

et al. 2010

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The reduced verbal long-term memory capacities often reported in dyslexics are generally interpreted as a consequence of their deficit in phonological coding.The present study was aimed at evaluating whether the learning deficit exhibited by dyslexics was restricted only to the verbal component of the long-term memory abilities or also involved visual-object and visual-spatial domain. A further goal of the present study was to investigate the predictive value of non-verbal long-term memory abilities with respect to word and non-word reading in dyslexic children.In accordance with these aims, performances of 60 dyslexic children were compared with that of 65 age-matched normal readers on verbal, visual-spatial and visual-object task.Results documented a generalized impairment of episodic long-term memory capacities in dyslexic children and the results did not vary as a function of children's age.Furthermore, in addition to verbal measures, also individual differences in non-verbal long-term memory tasks turn out to be good predictors of reading difficulties in dyslexics.Our findings indicate that the long-term memory deficit in dyslexia is not limited to the dysfunction of phonological components but also involves visual-object and visual-spatial aspect, thus suggesting that dyslexia is associated to multiple cognitive deficits.

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“…There is suggestive and increasing evidence that individuals with dyslexia may have difficulties in several of these non-declarative learning activities, with evidence of abnormal eye blink conditioning (Coffin, Baroody, Schneider, & O'Neill, 2005;Nicolson, Daum, Schugens, Fawcett, & Schulz, 2002); intriguing evidence of abnormal prism adaptation (Brookes, Nicolson, & Fawcett, 2007); and extensive evidence of implicit learning abnormalities (Howard, Howard, Japikse, & Eden, 2006;Menghini, Hagberg, Caltagirone, Petrosini, & Vicari, 2006;Stoodley, Harrison, & Stein, 2006;Vicari et al, 2005;Vicari, Marotta, Menghini, Molinari, & Petrosini, 2003).…”

Section: Interpretation Of the Three Studies In Terms Of Procedural Lmentioning

confidence: 99%

Procedural learning and dyslexia

et al. 2010

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Three major 'neural systems', specialized for different types of information processing, are the sensory, declarative, and procedural systems. It has been proposed (Trends Neurosci., 30(4), 135-141) that dyslexia may be attributable to impaired function in the procedural system together with intact declarative function. We provide a brief overview of the increasing evidence relating to the hypothesis, noting that the framework involves two main claims: first that 'neural systems' provides a productive level of description avoiding the underspecificity of cognitive descriptions and the overspecificity of brain structural accounts; and second that a distinctive feature of procedural learning is its extended time course, covering from minutes to months. In this article, we focus on the second claim. Three studies-speeded single word reading, long-term response learning, and overnight skill consolidation-are reviewed which together provide clear evidence of difficulties in procedural learning for individuals with dyslexia, even when the tasks are outside the literacy domain. The educational implications of the results are then discussed, and in particular the potential difficulties that impaired overnight procedural consolidation would entail. It is proposed that response to intervention could be better predicted if diagnostic tests on the different forms of learning were first undertaken.

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Implicit learning deficits in dyslexic adults: An fMRI study

Cited by 140 publications

References 76 publications

Dyslexic children show deficits in implicit sequence learning, but not in explicit sequence learning or contextual cueing

Dyslexic children show deficits in implicit sequence learning, but not in explicit sequence learning or contextual cueing

Developmental dyslexia and explicit long‐term memory

Procedural learning and dyslexia

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