Article
Neurosciences
Chengrou Lu, Huiling Li, Ruilin Fu, Jing Qu, Qingxin Yue, Leilei Mei
Summary: The study found that the VWFA does not represent case information, but represents case-independent linguistic information.
Article
Neurosciences
Sarah V. Di Pietro, David Willinger, Nada Frei, Christina Lutz, Seline Coraj, Chiara Schneider, Philipp Staempfli, Silvia Brem
Summary: Altered brain connectivity between regions of the reading network is associated with reading difficulties. This study aimed to investigate whether these connectivity differences are specific to reading impairments or reading experience in children with dyslexia (DYS) and those with typical reading skills (TR). The findings suggest that altered feedback connectivity between the inferior parietal lobule and the visual word form area (VWFA) during print processing is specific to reading impairments, while feedforward connectivity from VWFA to parietal and frontal regions characterizes reading experience and increases with age and reading skill in typical readers (TR).
Article
Neurosciences
Xiaoxia Feng, Karla Monzalvo, Stanislas Dehaene, Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz
Summary: The processing of words and faces in the brain gradually differs during the early stage of reading acquisition. Specific responses to written words appear after the beginning of reading, regardless of age, while responses to faces evolve in different age groups, mainly driven by age rather than education. The sectors of the brain related to words and faces have their own functional connectivity prior to reading acquisition.
Article
Neurosciences
Neelima Wagley, James R. Booth
Summary: This study examines the relationship between connectivity during phonological and semantic processing in the brain and word reading and reading comprehension skills. The findings suggest that connectivity in the dorsal inferior frontal gyrus to posterior superior temporal gyrus pathway is positively correlated with word reading skill, while connectivity in the ventral inferior frontal gyrus to posterior middle temporal gyrus pathway is not related to reading comprehension skill. The study also found no evidence to support the differentiation between the dorsal pathway's relation to word reading and the ventral pathway's relation to reading comprehension skills.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Matthew J. Boring, Edward H. Silson, Michael J. Ward, R. Mark Richardson, Julie A. Fiez, Chris Baker, Avniel Singh Ghuman
Summary: The study identified word- and face-selective regions within the human ventral temporal cortex (VTC) using intracranial recordings from patients, showing partially overlapping but anatomically dissociable patches. These regions were replicated using fMRI in healthy subjects, with word-selective responses in the left hemisphere preceding those in the right hemisphere by 125 ms. The distinct time courses of responses across these regions and between hemispheres suggest a complex and dynamic functional circuit supporting face and word perception.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Anatomy & Morphology
Caroline Beelen, Lauren Blockmans, Jan Wouters, Pol Ghesquiere, Maaike Vandermosten
Summary: The study found that better reading skills in grade 2 lead to a larger size of the left fusiform gyrus in grade 5, but there are no directional effects between the size of the left fusiform gyrus in grade 2 and reading skills in grade 5. The results suggest behavior-driven brain plasticity in reading development.
BRAIN STRUCTURE & FUNCTION
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yetta Kwailing Wong, Christine Kong-Yan Tong, Ming Lui, Alan C-N Wong
Summary: This study found that perceptual expertise with words plays a crucial role in Chinese reading performance in developmental dyslexia, and suggests that perceptual training could be a potential remediation direction.
Article
Neurosciences
Josh Neudorf, Layla Gould, Marla J. S. Mickelborough, Chelsea Ekstrand, Ron Borowsky
Summary: This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments to investigate the cognitive-neurophysiological functional architecture of reading words and naming pictures. The results showed overlapping activation between the left ventral occipitotemporal region (vOT) and referent pictures during reading, specifically for exception words. In picture naming, significant activation was observed in the right lateral occipital complex (LOC). These findings challenge specialized models of reading and picture naming.
Article
Neurosciences
Jun Zhang, Liying Kang, Junjun Li, Yizhen Li, Hongyan Bi, Yang Yang
Summary: Handwriting plays a crucial role in children's written communication, reading, and academic performance, yet there is a lack of understanding about the neural mechanisms involved. This study used fMRI to investigate the brain activation and functional lateralization associated with Chinese handwriting in children aged 9-11, and examined their relationship with reading skills. The findings revealed significant activation in various brain regions during handwriting, including bilateral frontal motor cortices, somatosensory cortex, intraparietal sulcus, fusiform gyrus, and cerebellum. Functional lateralization of motor regions, fusiform gyrus, and cerebellum was also observed. Additionally, the activation of Exner's area and the lateralization of intraparietal sulcus and cerebellum were found to be correlated with reading skills. These results provide valuable insights into the development of handwriting and reading skills in Chinese children.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Katherine A. DeLong, Wen-hsuan Chan, Marta Kutas
Summary: There is disagreement on what and when information is predicted, under which circumstances, and via which mechanism(s) in language comprehension. An event-related brain potential (ERP) study demonstrates that written word information can be rapidly facilitated through context-based expectancies.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Jie Dong, Qingxin Yue, Aqian Li, Lala Gu, Xinqi Su, Qi Chen, Leilei Mei
Summary: This study revealed how individuals' preferred reading pathways influence the neural mechanisms of phonological learning in a new language. The more individuals preferred the lexical pathway, the better they performed on newly-acquired characters, and the lower the involvement of corresponding brain regions.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Huiling Li, Yumin Liang, Qingxin Yue, Lei Zhang, Kangli Ying, Leilei Mei
Summary: The left fusiform cortex plays a crucial role in visual word learning and memory, with specific subregions positively correlated with recognition memory of novel words in both logographic and alphabetic writings.
BRAIN AND COGNITION
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Oscar Woolnough, Cristian Donos, Patrick S. Rollo, Kiefer J. Forseth, Yair Lakretz, Nathan E. Crone, Simon Fischer-Baum, Stanislas Dehaene, Nitin Tandon
Summary: Through direct intra-cranial recordings, researchers identified the mid-fusiform cortex as the first brain region sensitive to lexicality, driven by natural language statistics; information regarding lexicality and word frequency propagates backward from this region to visual word form regions and earlier visual cortex, impacting reading efficiency.
NATURE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
(2021)
Article
Education, Special
Xiang Lian, Wilson Cheong Hin Hong, Fei Gao, Kimberly Kolletar-Zhu, Jiayin Wang, Chi Cai, Fuxing Yang, Xiangrong Chen, Zhi Wang, Hongzhi Gao
Summary: This study suggests that removing background and less important elements in children's storybook pictures can enhance attention and focus of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Eye-tracking experiments showed that ASD+ID children had longer fixations, fewer fixations, and higher fixation/saccade duration ratio when viewing the modified pictures compared to the original pictures. Additionally, fMRI scans revealed increased brain activation in the bilateral fusiform gyri of ASD+ID participants when viewing the modified pictures, indicating enhanced visual attention.
RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Hend Lahoud, David L. Share, Adi Shechter
Summary: Previous studies have shown that eye movements during reading reflect cognitive processes. This study investigates the link between visual word recognition and eye movements in Hebrew, a non-European language with a non-alphabetic script. The results highlight both universal aspects of word reading as well as language-specific effects related to the unique features of the Semitic abjad.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Chuchu Li, Min Wang, Say Young Kim, Donald J. Bolger, Kelly Wright
Summary: This study investigated the primary phonological preparation unit in spoken word production in Korean. The results suggest that the body serves as the primary PP unit in Korean due to the strong prevalence of the CV structure and early literacy instructional approach.
LANGUAGE AND SPEECH
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jin Wang, Marisa N. Lytle, Yael Weiss, Brianna L. Yamasaki, James R. Booth
Summary: This dataset examines language development using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging, psycho-educational assessments, and questionnaires. A group of 322 children were followed over time, performing various tasks related to language processing. The dataset provides valuable information for studying the relationship between brain changes and language development.
Article
Psychology, Educational
Macarena Suarez-Pellicioni, James R. Booth
Summary: Math attitudes are related to academic achievement, and the development of positive math attitudes is associated with the storage of arithmetic facts in memory retrieval processes. However, changes in attitudes over time do not correspond with brain changes.
Article
Anatomy & Morphology
William W. Graves, Jeremy Purcell, David Rothlein, Donald J. Bolger, Miriam Rosenberg-Lee, Ryan Staples
Summary: The study found that phonological and orthographic representations are primarily associated with the supramarginal gyrus, while semantic representations are primarily associated with the angular gyrus. De-correlating constituent representations of complex cognitive processes by careful selection of stimuli, representational formats, and analysis techniques is a promising approach for enhancing our understanding of brain structure-function relationships.
BRAIN STRUCTURE & FUNCTION
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Neelima Wagley, James R. Booth
Summary: This study examines the relationship between connectivity during phonological and semantic processing in the brain and word reading and reading comprehension skills. The findings suggest that connectivity in the dorsal inferior frontal gyrus to posterior superior temporal gyrus pathway is positively correlated with word reading skill, while connectivity in the ventral inferior frontal gyrus to posterior middle temporal gyrus pathway is not related to reading comprehension skill. The study also found no evidence to support the differentiation between the dorsal pathway's relation to word reading and the ventral pathway's relation to reading comprehension skills.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Macarena Suarez-Pellicioni, Jerome Prado, James R. Booth
CURRENT OPINION IN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Elyas Barabadi, Gholam Hassan Khajavy, James R. Booth, Mohsen Rahmani Tabar, Mohammad Reza Vahdani Asadi
Summary: This study examines the relationship between perfectionistic cognitions and L2 anxiety, willingness to communicate, and achievement. The factor structure of perfectionistic cognitions is also investigated. The results show that perfectionistic cognitions have two dimensions: personal standards and concerns over mistakes. Personal standards are positively correlated with L2 achievement and willingness to communicate, and negatively correlated with L2 anxiety. Concerns over mistakes are positively correlated with L2 anxiety. In both cases, anxiety mediates the relationship between perfectionism and outcome variables.
CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Brandee Feola, Lesley Sand, Sharona Atkins, Michael Bunting, Michael Dougherty, Donald J. Bolger
Summary: This study investigated whether cognitive inhibition and response inhibition involve shared or distinct brain regions. The results showed that both cognitive and response inhibition recruited overlapping brain regions, such as the frontal cortex, temporal lobe, and parietal cortex. However, direct comparison revealed that they also engaged distinct brain regions specific to the task. These findings contribute to the understanding of the neural basis of inhibition by demonstrating that cognitive and response inhibition involve both overlapping and distinct brain regions.
BRAIN AND COGNITION
(2023)
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Jin Wang, Frank Tong, Marc F. Joanisse, James R. Booth
Summary: By using multi-voxel pattern analysis, this study found that children with better initial reading skills had higher decoding coefficients for phonological representations in the brain. This effect was only observed in younger children.
BRAIN AND LANGUAGE
(2023)
Article
Education & Educational Research
Joshua Benjamin Jaffe, Troy Gharibani, Donald Joseph Bolger
Summary: Successful word problem performance often requires understanding the linguistic relations between characters and objects. The keyword method, however, neglects situational context and promotes associating specific words with mathematical operations. Research has shown that individuals associating relational terminology with mathematical operations have detrimental effects on performance. This study expands upon previous research by examining whether undergraduate students associate verbs with mathematical operations and the impact on word problem performance. The results indicate that similar to relational terminology, the participants' associations between verbs and operations significantly affected their performance.
MIND BRAIN AND EDUCATION
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Kehui Zhang, Xin Sun, Chi-Lin Yu, Rachel L. Eggleston, Rebecca A. Marks, Nia Nickerson, Valeria C. Caruso, Xiao-Su Hu, Twila Tardif, Tai-Li Chou, James R. Booth, Ioulia Kovelman
Summary: During literacy development, children learn to recognize word sounds and meanings in print, but this process is different for alphabetic and character-based orthographies. A study involving bilingual and monolingual children showed that the task that was more central to reading in a specific orthography elicited less brain activation. Bilingual children showed less activation during phonology but more activation during morphology compared to monolinguals. These findings suggest that both the structural characteristics and literacy experiences with a given language can influence children's emerging brain networks for learning to read.
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Upasana Nathaniel, Stav Eidelsztein, Kate Girsh Geskin, Brianna L. Yamasaki, Bracha Nir, Vedran Dronjic, James R. Booth, Tali Bitan
Summary: This study examined whether morphological decomposition occurs in the early stages of learning a new language and whether the morphological structure of words (linear vs. non-linear) affects decomposition. Results showed that participants learned trained words faster in the linear condition and had better generalization to untrained words in both complex conditions compared to the simple condition. Furthermore, the performance was better for linear morphology than non-linear morphology. Learning the concrete meaning of the root morpheme was more effective than learning the more abstract template/suffix morphemes. Overall, this study suggests that the saliency of discrete units is important in early stages of learning derived words, even for speakers familiar with non-linear structures in their native language.
Article
Linguistics
Xin Sun, Rebecca A. Marks, Rachel L. Eggleston, Kehui Zhang, Chi-Lin Yu, Nia Nickerson, Valeria Caruso, Tai-Li Chou, Xiao-Su Hu, Twila Tardif, James R. Booth, Adriene M. Beltz, Ioulia Kovelman
Summary: Diversity and variation in language experiences, such as bilingualism, contribute to heterogeneity in children's neural organization for language and brain development. The present study examined the effects of bilingual proficiency on children's neural organization for language function, and found that bilinguals' heritage language proficiency made a unique contribution to children's language network density. The study also revealed common and unique patterns in children's patterns of task-related functional connectivity.
NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE
(2023)
Article
Linguistics
Jin Wang, Brianna L. Yamasaki, James R. Booth
Summary: One core aspect of brain maturation is functional specialization, and previous research has found that 7-8-year-old children start to specialize in both the temporal and frontal lobes. However, it remained unclear whether there would be any changes in specialization later in childhood as children continue to develop their phonological and semantic skills. This study aimed to examine phonological and semantic specialization in 9-10-year-old children during auditory word processing, and the results showed that 9-10-year-old children also exhibited language specialization in both the temporal and frontal lobes.
NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE
(2023)
Article
Linguistics
Yue Gao, Xiangzhi Meng, Zilin Bai, Xin Liu, Manli Zhang, Hehui Li, Guosheng Ding, Li Liu, James R. Booth
Summary: This study investigates the relationship between reading ability and specific brain regions in Chinese-English bilingual children. The results show that reading in different writing systems shares some universal neural processes, but also has certain language-specific differences. For English reading, certain regions in the left hemisphere are closely related to phonological mechanisms, while for Chinese reading, certain regions in the right hemisphere are closely related to visual spatial mechanisms.
NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE
(2022)
