title: Spatio-temporal dynamics of automatic processing of phonological information in visual words.
abstract: Sensory-specific cortices appear to be sensitive to information from another modality. Here we investigate whether the human brain automatically extracts the phonological information in visual words in early visual processing. We continuously presented native Chinese speakers peripherally with Chinese homophone characters in an oddball paradigm, while they performed a visual detection task presented in the centre of the visual field. We found the lexical tone phonology embedded in the characters is processed automatically by the brain of native speakers, as revealed by whole-head electrical recordings of the mismatch negativity (MMN). Source solution further revealed the MMN involved the neural activations from the visual cortex to the auditory cortex (130-460 ms). The spatial-temporal dynamics indicate a visual-auditory interaction in the early, automatic processing of phonological information in visual words.
authors: Division of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
authors: Xiao-Dong
authors: XD
authors: Wang
authors: The F. M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.
authors: Yin-Yuan
authors: YY
authors: Wu
authors: CAS Key Laboratory of Ion Beam Bioengineering, Institute of Technical Biology and Agriculture Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.
authors: A-Ping Liu
authors: CAS Key Laboratory of Ion Beam Bioengineering, Institute of Technical Biology and Agriculture Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China.
authors: Peng
authors: P
authors: Wang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D062211:Spatio-Temporal Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult