The inversion effect in visual word form processing

Reading is one of the best well-practiced visual tasks for modern people. We investigated how the visual cortex analyzes spatial configuration in written words by studying the inversion effect in Chinese character processing. We measured the psychometric functions and brain activations for upright r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cortex 2010-02, Vol.46 (2), p.217-230
Main Authors: Kao, Chien-Hui, Chen, Der-Yow, Chen, Chien-Chung
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Female
Functional MRI
Hanzi
Humans
Language
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Models, Psychological
Object perception
Occipital Lobe - physiology
Photic Stimulation
Psychometrics
Reading
Spatial configuration
Task Performance and Analysis
Temporal Lobe - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology
Young Adult
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Summary:Reading is one of the best well-practiced visual tasks for modern people. We investigated how the visual cortex analyzes spatial configuration in written words by studying the inversion effect in Chinese character processing. We measured the psychometric functions and brain activations for upright real-characters and non-characters and their inverted (upside down) versions. In the psychophysical experiment, the real-characters showed an inversion effect at both 1° and 4° eccentricities, while the non-characters showed no inversion effect for all eccentricities tested. In the functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) experiment, the left fusiform gyrus and a small area in the bilateral lateral occipital regions showed a significant differential activation between upright and inverted real-characters. The bilateral fusiform gyri also show differential activation between upright real- and non-characters. The dorsal lateral occipital regions showed character-selective activation when compared with scrambled lines. The result suggested that the occipitoparietal regions may analyze the local features of an object regardless of its familiarity. Therefore, the lateral occipital regions may play an intermediate role in integrating the local information in an object. Finally, the fusiform gyrus plays a critical role in analyzing global configurations of a visual word form. This is consistent with the notion that the human visual cortex analyzes an object in a hierarchical way.
ISSN:0010-9452
1973-8102
DOI:10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.003