title: Picturing words? Sensorimotor cortex activation for printed words in child and adult readers.
abstract: Learning to read involves associating abstract visual shapes with familiar meanings. Embodiment theories suggest that word meaning is at least partially represented in distributed sensorimotor networks in the brain (Barsalou, 2008; Pulvermueller, 2013). We explored how reading comprehension develops by tracking when and how printed words start activating these "semantic" sensorimotor representations as children learn to read. Adults and children aged 7-10 years showed clear category-specific cortical specialization for tool versus animal pictures during a one-back categorisation task. Thus, sensorimotor representations for these categories were in place at all ages. However, co-activation of these same brain regions by the visual objects' written names was only present in adults, even though all children could read and comprehend all presented words, showed adult-like task performance, and older children were proficient readers. It thus takes years of training and expert reading skill before spontaneous processing of printed words' sensorimotor meanings develops in childhood.
authors.affiliation: Department of Visual Neuroscience, Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, UK; Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Science, Birkbeck, University of London, UK. Electronic address: t.dekker@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Tessa M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Dekker
authors.affiliation: Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Science, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
authors.forename: Denis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mareschal
authors.affiliation: Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Science, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
authors.forename: Mark H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Science, Birkbeck, University of London, UK; Birkbeck-UCL Centre for Neuroimaging, Department of Psychology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Martin I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Sereno
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007858:Learning; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D066191:Sensorimotor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Animals; Child; Embodiment; Motor cortex; Objects; Reading comprehension; Sensory cortex; Utensils; Words; fMRI