The visual system is tuned by its inputs. The behavior of reading offers a unique way to examine tuning for visual representations (letters) because readers have massive experience recognizing letters in a systematic context (reading). One aspect of reading is that letters are highly crowded within words, which severely limits their…

Learning to read depends on the ability to extract precise details of letter combinations, which convey critical information that distinguishes tens of thousands of visual word forms. To support fluent reading skill, one crucial neural developmental process is one's brain sensitivity to statistical constraints inherent in combining letters into…

A functional region of left fusiform gyrus termed "the visual word form area" (VWFA) develops during reading acquisition to respond more strongly to printed words than to other visual stimuli. Here, we examined responses to letters among 5- and 6-year-old early kindergarten children (N = 48) with little or no school-based reading…

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of phonological information on visual word recognition by using letter transposition effects. The Korean writing system gives a unique opportunity to investigate such phenomenon since the transposition of the beginning consonant (onset) and the end consonant (coda) of a certain syllable allows one…

The encoding of letter position is a key aspect in all recently proposed models of visual-word recognition. We analyzed the impact of lexical frequency on letter position assignment by examining the temporal dynamics of lexical activation induced by pseudowords extracted from words of different frequencies. For each word (e.g., BRIDGE), we created…

This study describes the case of a global alexic patient with a severe reading deficit affecting words, letters and Arabic numbers, following a left posterior lesion. The patient (VA) could not match spoken letters to their graphic form. A preserved ability to recognize shape and canonical orientation of letters indicates intact access to the…

Word reading in alphabetic languages involves letter identification, independently of the format in which these letters are written. This process of letter "regularization" is sensitive to word context, leading to the recognition of a word even when numbers that resemble letters are inserted among other real letters (e.g., M4TERI4L). The present…

Bilingual reading can require more than knowing two languages. Learners must acquire also the writing conventions of their second language, which can differ in its deep mapping principles (writing system) and its visual configurations (script). We review ERP (event-related potential) and fMRI studies of both Chinese-English bilingualism and…

One explanation for the relationship between serial rapid naming (SRN) and reading is that SRN affects the temporal proximity of the phonological activation of the letters in a word, which, in turn, influences the acquisition of orthographic knowledge. To test this hypothesis, a group of Dutch first grade children was trained in the rapid serial…