Reading Flashcards
(13 cards)
What is the difference between reading and speech perception?
Reading is not linear and involves saccades; speech is linear and processed sequentially.
What is the word superiority effect?
Letters are recognised more accurately when part of a real word (Reicher, 1969; Wheeler, 1970).
What does eye-tracking reveal about reading?
We read using fixations and saccades, jumping between words or phrases.
What is the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA)?
A region in the left vOTC specialised for recognising familiar letter patterns and words.
What is pure alexia?
A condition where reading ability is lost due to brain damage, often in left vOTC.
What did Dejerine’s patient Mr. C reveal?
Damage to fibres connecting visual input to language areas causes word blindness.
What did Cohen et al. (2000) find about VWFA?
VWFA activates for real words more than consonant strings or symbols.
What did Gaillard et al. (2006) find using ECoG?
VWFA activates ~200ms after word presentation and is essential for reading.
What did Binder et al. (2006) contribute?
VWFA handles word form recognition; other brain areas process meaning.
What did Seghier et al. (2008) find?
VWFA overlaps with regions involved in semantic processing.
Why is the left VWFA important for reading?
Reading is impaired when words are presented to the left visual field (processed by the right hemisphere).
What do split-brain studies reveal about VWFA?
Only the left hemisphere can read words shown in the left field, showing lateralisation.
Is the VWFA specific to reading?
No — it’s also active in visual pattern recognition and braille reading, suggesting it was adapted for reading.
