On the functional neuroanatomy of visual word processing: Effects of case and letter deviance

  • Authors:

  • Martin Kronbichler;Johannes Klackl;Fabio Richlan;Matthias Schurz;Wolfgang Staffen;Gunther Ladurner;Heinz Wimmer

  • Affiliations:

  • -;-;-;-;-;-;-

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

This functional magnetic resonance imaging study contrasted case-deviant and letter-deviant forms with familiar forms of the same phonological words (e.g., TaXi and Taksi vs. Taxi) and found that both types of deviance led to increased activation in a left occipito-temporal region, corresponding to the visual word form area (VWFA). The sensitivity of the VWFA to both types of deviance may suggest that this region represents well-known visual words not only as sequences of abstract letter identities but also includes information on the typical case-format pattern of visual words. Case-deviant items, in addition, led to increased activation in a right occipito-temporal region and in a left occipital and a left posterior occipito-temporal region, which may reflect increased demands on letter processing posed by the case-deviant forms.