A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading

We read jubmled wrods effortlessly, but the neural correlates of this remarkable ability remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that viewing a jumbled word activates a visual representation that is compared to known words. To test this hypothesis, we devised a purely visual model in which neurons...

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Main Authors:	Aakash Agrawal, KVS Hari, SP Arun
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 2020-05-01
Series:	eLife
Subjects:	language reading word recognition orthographic processing
Online Access:	https://elifesciences.org/articles/54846

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spelling	doaj-73e9b6a88843417e8c76b444b543f2dc2021-05-05T21:04:32ZengeLife Sciences Publications LtdeLife2050-084X2020-05-01910.7554/eLife.54846A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word readingAakash Agrawal0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8320-4516KVS Hari1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1264-1895SP Arun2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9602-5066Centre for BioSystems Science & Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IndiaDepartment of Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IndiaCentre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IndiaWe read jubmled wrods effortlessly, but the neural correlates of this remarkable ability remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that viewing a jumbled word activates a visual representation that is compared to known words. To test this hypothesis, we devised a purely visual model in which neurons tuned to letter shape respond to longer strings in a compositional manner by linearly summing letter responses. We found that dissimilarities between letter strings in this model can explain human performance on visual search, and responses to jumbled words in word reading tasks. Brain imaging revealed that viewing a string activates this letter-based code in the lateral occipital (LO) region and that subsequent comparisons to stored words are consistent with activations of the visual word form area (VWFA). Thus, a compositional neural code potentially contributes to efficient reading.https://elifesciences.org/articles/54846languagereadingword recognitionorthographic processing
collection	DOAJ
language	English
format	Article
sources	DOAJ
author	Aakash Agrawal KVS Hari SP Arun
spellingShingle	Aakash Agrawal KVS Hari SP Arun A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading eLife language reading word recognition orthographic processing
author_facet	Aakash Agrawal KVS Hari SP Arun
author_sort	Aakash Agrawal
title	A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading
title_short	A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading
title_full	A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading
title_fullStr	A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading
title_full_unstemmed	A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading
title_sort	compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading
publisher	eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
series	eLife
issn	2050-084X
publishDate	2020-05-01
description	We read jubmled wrods effortlessly, but the neural correlates of this remarkable ability remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that viewing a jumbled word activates a visual representation that is compared to known words. To test this hypothesis, we devised a purely visual model in which neurons tuned to letter shape respond to longer strings in a compositional manner by linearly summing letter responses. We found that dissimilarities between letter strings in this model can explain human performance on visual search, and responses to jumbled words in word reading tasks. Brain imaging revealed that viewing a string activates this letter-based code in the lateral occipital (LO) region and that subsequent comparisons to stored words are consistent with activations of the visual word form area (VWFA). Thus, a compositional neural code potentially contributes to efficient reading.
topic	language reading word recognition orthographic processing
url	https://elifesciences.org/articles/54846
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A compositional neural code in high-level visual cortex can explain jumbled word reading

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