Specific problems in visual cognition of dyslexic readers: Face discrimination deficits predict dyslexia over and above discrimination of scrambled faces and novel objects

Sigurdardottir, Heida Maria; Friðriksdóttir, Liv Elísabet; Gudjonsdottir, Sigridur; Kristjánsson, Árni

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.02.017

Cited by 32 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…In that light, it is interesting that we find clear differences between DPs and controls in left lateralized areas involved in face processing, but no difference in activation for words or in behavioural reading responses. This stands in contrast to patterns revealed in developmental dyslexia (a disorder affecting reading acquisition), where recent studies have revealed behavioural impairments in recognition of faces as well as words ( Sigurdardottir et al , 2015 ; Gabay et al , 2017 ; Sigurdardottir et al , 2018 ; but see Robotham and Starrfelt, 2017 ). Correspondingly, using the same stimuli and paradigm as the current study, Monzalvo et al (2012) found lower activation in the VWFA and right FFA, respectively, in dyslexic children.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 80%

Left hemisphere abnormalities in developmental prosopagnosia when looking at faces but not words

Gerlach

Klargaard

Alnæs

et al. 2019

Brain Communications

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Abstract Developmental prosopagnosia is a disorder characterized by profound and lifelong difficulties with face recognition in the absence of sensory or intellectual deficits or known brain injury. While there has been a surge in research on developmental prosopagnosia over the last decade and a half, the cognitive mechanisms behind the disorder and its neural underpinnings remain elusive. Most recently it has been proposed that developmental prosopagnosia may be a manifestation of widespread disturbance in neural migration which affects both face responsive brain regions as well as other category-sensitive visual areas. We present a combined behavioural and functional MRI study of face, object and word processing in a group of developmental prosopagnosics (N = 15). We show that developmental prosopagnosia is associated with reduced activation of core ventral face areas during perception of faces. The reductions were bilateral but tended to be more pronounced in the left hemisphere. As the first study to address category selectivity for word processing in developmental prosopagnosia, we do not, however, find evidence for reduced activation of the visual word form area during perception of orthographic material. We also find no evidence for reduced activation of the lateral occipital complex during perception of objects. These imaging findings correspond well with the behavioural performance of the developmental prosopagnosics, who show severe impairment for faces but normal reading and recognition of line drawings. Our findings suggest that a general deficit in neural migration across ventral occipito-temporal cortex is not a viable explanation for developmental prosopagnosia. The finding of left hemisphere involvement in our group of developmental prosopagnosics was at first surprising. However, a closer look at existing studies shows similar, but hitherto undiscussed, findings. These left hemisphere abnormalities seen in developmental prosopagnosia contrasts with lesion and imaging studies suggesting primarily right hemisphere involvement in acquired prosopagnosia, and this may reflect that the left hemisphere is important for the development of a normal face recognition network.

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 80%

Left hemisphere abnormalities in developmental prosopagnosia when looking at faces but not words

Gerlach

Klargaard

Alnæs

et al. 2019

Brain Communications

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“…Taken together, these findings support the claim that individuals with DD may present with impairments in the visual domain that are not restricted to word processing. Studies investigating visual processing of non-orthographic stimuli (e.g., faces and objects) have indeed demonstrated atypical performance, which strengthens the hypothesis that a visual impairment may characterize some types of DD (Sigurdardottir et al, 2015(Sigurdardottir et al, , 2018Gabay et al, 2017;Robotham and Starrfelt, 2017). Such evidence cannot be fully accounted for by lexically based visual word recognition models (i.e., the DRC model).…”

supporting

confidence: 52%

Double Trouble: Visual and Phonological Impairments in English Dyslexic Readers

et al. 2019

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Developmental dyslexia is a reading disorder characterized by problems in accurate or fluent reading. A deficiency in phonological processing is thought to underpin the reading difficulties of individuals with developmental dyslexia and a variety of explanations have been proposed including deficits in phonological awareness and verbal memory. Recent investigations have begun to suggest that developmental deficits in the acquisition of reading may also co-occur with visual processing deficits, which are particularly salient for visually complex stimuli, yet these deficits have received relatively little attention from researchers. To further explore the nature of phonological and visual processing in developmental dyslexia, we administered a series of non-reading tasks tapping both domains. Unsurprisingly, individuals with developmental dyslexia performed worse than typically developing readers in phonological tasks. More intriguingly, they also struggled with visual tasks, specifically when discriminating between novel visual patterns, and in visuo-spatial working memory, which requires greater attentional control. These findings highlight that individuals with developmental dyslexia present not only with phonological impairments but also difficulties in processing visual materials. This aspect has received limited attention in previous literature and represents an aspect of novelty of this study. The dual phonological and visual impairments suggest that developmental dyslexia is a complex disorder characterized by deficits in different cognitive mechanisms that underpin reading.

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“…For example, “If SL is impaired because of the implicit nature of the learning process, then DD will not be impaired in SL tasks that implicate explicit learning conditions.” Or, “If an SL deficit for DD is related to regions of visual object recognition, then DD will not show SL deficit in other modalities.” In the studies exemplified above (see Table 1), this was not done. For example, Sigurdardottir et al (2018), who focused on problems with the ventral visual stream, did not show that DD are performing normally on auditory SL. Gabay et al (2015), who focused on SL abilities as drawing on procedural learning, demonstrated impaired performance on an SL embedded-pattern-learning task with linguistic and nonlinguistic auditory materials but did not show how the DD group performed on an explicit learning task with the same materials.…”

Section: Moving Beyond Studies With Singular Confirmatory Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4). A very different theoretical approach was provided by Sigurdardottir, Fridriksdottir, Gudjonsdottir, and Kristjánsson (2018). They argued that readers with DD show hypoactivation in ventral visual stream, which supports word, object, and face recognition.…”

Section: Sl and Language Impairmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different theories relate to the construct of SL from very different perspectives. Returning to our examples above, some approaches viewed SL as included within/ overlapping with implicit learning (e.g., J. L. Evans et al, 2009;Gabay et al, 2015;Kahta & Schiff, 2019), whereas another centered on SL being a mechanism shaping ventral visual stream regions that support object and word recognition (e.g., Sigurdardottir et al, 2018). These different theoretical approaches lead to identical predictions because they focus on a vague commonality between the targeted cognitive construct (e.g., procedural learning, visual recognition, etc.)…”

Section: Vagueness Of the Demarcation Lines Between Theoretical Constructs In The Domain Of Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Statistical Learning and Language Impairments: Toward More Precise Theoretical Accounts

Bogaerts

Siegelman

Frost

2020

Perspect Psychol Sci

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Statistical-learning (SL) theory offers an experience-based account of typical and atypical spoken and written language acquisition. Recent work has provided initial support for this view, tying individual differences in SL abilities to linguistic skills, including language impairments. In the current article, we provide a critical review of studies testing SL abilities in participants with and without developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment and discuss the directions that this field of research has taken so far. We identify substantial vagueness in the demarcation lines between different theoretical constructs (e.g., “statistical learning,” “implicit learning,” and “procedural learning”) as well as in the mappings between experimental tasks and these theoretical constructs. Moreover, we argue that current studies are not designed to contrast different theoretical approaches but rather test singular confirmatory predictions without including control tasks showing normal performance. We end by providing concrete suggestions for how to advance research on SL deficits in language impairments.

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Specific problems in visual cognition of dyslexic readers: Face discrimination deficits predict dyslexia over and above discrimination of scrambled faces and novel objects

Cited by 32 publications

References 74 publications

Left hemisphere abnormalities in developmental prosopagnosia when looking at faces but not words

Left hemisphere abnormalities in developmental prosopagnosia when looking at faces but not words

Double Trouble: Visual and Phonological Impairments in English Dyslexic Readers

Statistical Learning and Language Impairments: Toward More Precise Theoretical Accounts

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