Optical imaging of phonological processing in two distinct orthographies

Chen, Hsin-Chin; Vaid, Jyotsna; Bortfeld, Heather; Boas, David A.

doi:10.1007/s00221-007-1200-0

Cited by 22 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(38 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Even with the less powerful event-related design used here (but one that guards against carry-over effects), our results suggest that the NIRS method is capable of detecting subtle hemodynamic changes in complex language experiments, as suggested also by Chen et al [2008]. Because other studies have suggested that NIRS data are highly consistent with fMRI data, we anticipate seeing more research in the future using NIRS, as it is a more portable and affordable alternative to fMRI, as long as the ROI has been identified and is within the range of spatial resolution provided by NIRS [Strangman et al, 2002a].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Examining the phonological neighborhood density effect using near infrared spectroscopy

Chen

Vaid

Boas

et al. 2011

Human Brain Mapping

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Phonological density refers to the number of words that can be generated by replacing a phoneme in a target word with another phoneme in the same position. Although the precise nature of the phonological neighborhood density effect is not firmly established, many behavioral psycholinguistic studies have shown that visual recognition of individual words is influenced by the number and type of neighbors the words have. This study explored neurobehavioral correlates of phonological neighborhood density in skilled readers of English using near infrared spectroscopy. On the basis of a lexical decision task, our findings showed that words with many phonological neighbors (e.g., FRUIT) were recognized more slowly than words with few phonological neighbors (e.g., PROOF), and that words with many neighbors elicited significantly greater changes in blood oxygenation in the left than in the right hemisphere of the brain, specifically in the areas BA 22/39/40. In previous studies these brain areas have been implicated in fine-grained phonological processing in readers of English. The present findings provide the first demonstration that areas BA 22/39/40 are also sensitive to phonological density effects.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Examining the phonological neighborhood density effect using near infrared spectroscopy

Chen

Vaid

Boas

et al. 2011

Human Brain Mapping

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Research in the domain of reading has revealed that the network of language-processing regions typically associated with reading may be augmented by direct mappings between orthography and semantic content in Chinese readers. This additional mapping process may rely on activity in the rostrolateral aspect of the activation reported here (e.g., Chen, Vaid, Bortfeld, & Boas, 2008;Siok, Niu, Jin, Perfetti, & Tan, 2008;Booth et al, 2006;Kuo et al, 2004;Siok et al, 2004). Further work connecting these literatures may provide interesting insight into symbolic representation of numerosities in that Arabic numerals, like Chinese characters, are visual representations of abstract meaning that need not carry any phonetic information.…”

Section: Comparison > Recognition Taskmentioning

confidence: 88%

The Cerebral Basis of Mapping Nonsymbolic Numerical Quantities onto Abstract Symbols: An fMRI Training Study

Lyons

Ansari

2009

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although significant insights into the neural basis of numerical and mathematical processing have been made, the neural processes that enable abstract symbols to become numerical remain largely unexplored in humans. In the present study, adult participants were trained to associate novel symbols with nonsymbolic numerical magnitudes (arrays of dots). Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine the neural correlates of numerical comparison versus recognition of the novel symbols after each of two training stages. A left-lateralized fronto-parietal network, including the intraparietal sulcus, the precuneus, and the dorsal prefrontal cortex, was more active during numerical comparison than during perceptual recognition. In contrast, a network including bilateral temporal-occipital regions was more active during recognition than comparison. A whole-brain three-way interaction revealed that those individuals who had higher scores on a postscan numerical task (measuring their understanding of the global numerical organization of the novel symbols) exhibited increasing segregation between the two tasks in the bilateral intraparietal sulci as a function of increased training. Furthermore, whole-brain regression analysis showed that activity in the left intraparietal sulcus was systematically related to the effect of numerical distance on accuracy. These data provide converging evidence that parietal and left prefrontal cortices are involved in learning to map numerical quantities onto visual symbols. Only the parietal cortex, however, appeared systematically related to the degree to which individuals learned to associate novel symbols with their numerical referents. We conclude that the left parietal cortex, in particular, may play a central role in imbuing visual symbols with numerical meaning.

show abstract

“…This association must be learned by rote memorization of Chinese characters, demanding an intensive coordination of various kinds of linguistic information contained in written Chinese (28,(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35). The left middle frontal gyrus is thought to be involved in the allocation and coordination of cognitive resources in working memory (36,37) and may therefore be recruited to serve this function (34,35,38).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These differences can lead to differences in how reading is supported in the brain. Readers of Chinese show relatively more engagement of visuospatial areas and left middle frontal regions for verbal working memory, presumably for recognizing complex, square-shaped characters whose pronunciations must be memorized by rote instead of being learned by using letter-to-sound conversion rules (31)(32)(33)(34)(35). In an fMRI study, we previously showed that, unlike impaired reading in English and other Western languages, impaired reading in logographic Chinese is associated with functional disruption of processes localized to the left middle frontal gyrus (28).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A structural–functional basis for dyslexia in the cortex of Chinese readers

Siok

Niu

Zhou

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

242

187

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Developmental dyslexia is a neurobiologically based disorder that affects Ϸ5-17% of school children and is characterized by a severe impairment in reading skill acquisition. For readers of alphabetic (e.g., English) languages, recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that dyslexia is associated with weak reading-related activity in left temporoparietal and occipitotemporal regions, and this activity difference may reflect reductions in gray matter volume in these areas. Here, we find different structural and functional abnormalities in dyslexic readers of Chinese, a nonalphabetic language. Compared with normally developing controls, children with impaired reading in logographic Chinese exhibited reduced gray matter volume in a left middle frontal gyrus region previously shown to be important for Chinese reading and writing. Using functional MRI to study language-related activation of cortical regions in dyslexics, we found reduced activation in this same left middle frontal gyrus region in Chinese dyslexics versus controls, and there was a significant correlation between gray matter volume and activation in the language task in this same area. By contrast, Chinese dyslexics did not show functional or structural (i.e., volumetric gray matter) differences from normal subjects in the more posterior brain systems that have been shown to be abnormal in alphabetic-language dyslexics. The results suggest that the structural and functional basis for dyslexia varies between alphabetic and nonalphabetic languages.brain function ͉ Chinese language ͉ culture ͉ reading disorder ͉ neuroimaging D evelopmental dyslexia is characterized by unexpectedly low reading ability in people who have adequate intelligence, typical schooling, and sufficient sociocultural opportunities (1-10). Early investigations of postmortem dyslexic brains revealed structural abnormalities in both cortical and subcortical areas (11,12). Recent neuroimaging studies examining structurefunction relationships with alphabetic languages have further identified several brain regions with atypical function and anomalous structure in dyslexia, including left temporoparietal areas, which are thought to be involved in letter-to-sound conversions in reading (1-8, 13-18), the left middle-superior temporal cortex, which is thought to be involved in speech sound analysis (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22), and the left inferior temporo-occipital gyrus, which may function as a quick word form recognition system (18,20,(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27). Together, these findings support a prominent neurophysiological model of reading skill acquisition and its disorders according to which dyslexia is associated with atypical structural and functional development of posterior brain systems (1-10).The neural circuits involved in reading and reading disorders may vary across languages, because of differences in how a writing system links print to spoken language (4-7, 28-30). For example, in logographic Chinese, graphic forms (characters) are mapped to syllables, which differs markedly fr...

show abstract

Optical imaging of phonological processing in two distinct orthographies

Cited by 22 publications

References 17 publications

Examining the phonological neighborhood density effect using near infrared spectroscopy

Examining the phonological neighborhood density effect using near infrared spectroscopy

The Cerebral Basis of Mapping Nonsymbolic Numerical Quantities onto Abstract Symbols: An fMRI Training Study

A structural–functional basis for dyslexia in the cortex of Chinese readers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About