Visual speech inputs can enhance auditory speech information, particularly in noisy or degraded conditions. The natural statistics of audiovisual speech highlight the temporal correspondence between visual and auditory prosody, with lip, jaw, cheek and head movements conveying information about the speech envelope. Low-frequency spatial and…

In this study, we investigated how people deal with irrelevant contextual information during speech production. Two main models have been proposed. WEAVER++ assumes that irrelevant information is removed from the production system by an early blocking mechanism. On the other hand, the response exclusion hypothesis assumes a blocking mechanism that…

This fMRI study was conducted to investigate whether language semantics is processed even when attention is not explicitly directed to word meanings. In the "unattended" condition, the subjects performed a visual detection task while hearing semantically related and unrelated word pairs. In the "phoneme" condition, the subjects made phoneme…

Little is known about the relationship of reading speed and early visual processes in normal readers. Here we examined the association of the early P1, N170 and late N1 component in visual event-related potentials (ERPs) with silent reading speed and a number of additional cognitive skills in a sample of 52 adult German readers utilizing a Lexical…

This study examined the capability of the left hemisphere (LH) and the right hemisphere (RH) to perform a visual recognition task independently as formulated by the Direct Access Model (Fernandino, Iacoboni, & Zaidel, 2007). Healthy native Hebrew speakers were asked to categorize nouns and non-words (created from nouns by transposing two middle…

To identify neural regions that automatically respond to linguistically structured, but meaningless manual gestures, 14 deaf native users of American Sign Language (ASL) and 14 hearing non-signers passively viewed pseudosigns (possible but non-existent ASL signs) and non-iconic ASL signs, in addition to a fixation baseline. For the contrast…

What helps us determine whether a word is a noun or a verb, without conscious awareness? We report on cues in the way individual English words are spelled, and, for the first time, identify their neural correlates via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We used a lexical decision task with trisyllabic nouns and verbs containing…

There exists an increasing body of research demonstrating that language processing is aided by context-based predictions. Recent findings suggest that the brain generates estimates about the likely physical appearance of upcoming words based on syntactic predictions: words that do not physically look like the expected syntactic category show…

The left mid-fusiform gyrus is repeatedly reported to be involved in visual word processing. Nevertheless, it is controversial whether this area responds to orthographic processing of reading. To examine this idea, neural activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging in the present study while subjects performed phonological,…

It has recently been shown that interhemispheric communication is needed for the processing of foveally presented words. In this study, we examine whether the integration of information happens at an early stage, before word recognition proper starts, or whether the integration is part of the recognition process itself. Two lexical decision…

Recent work has shown that Whorf effects of language on color discrimination are stronger in the right visual field than in the left. Here we show that this phenomenon is not limited to color: The perception of animal figures (cats and dogs) was more strongly affected by linguistic categories for stimuli presented to the right visual field than…