Liu Chao, Zhang Wu-Tian, Tang Yi-Yuan, Mai Xiao-Qin, Chen Hsuan-Chih, Tardif Twila, Luo Yue-Jia
Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
Neuroimage. 2008 Apr 15;40(3):1350-61. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.10.014. Epub 2007 Oct 25.
A notable controversy in neurolinguistics is whether there is a particular brain area specialized for visual word recognition within the visual ventral stream. We investigated this question via implicit processing of Chinese characters. Implicit processing of four types of stimuli--real characters, pseudo characters, artificial characters, and checkerboard--in two different sizes, were compared in 14 normal participants using functional MRI (fMRI) with a size judgment task. The results showed that when the three character types were contrasted to one another, there was significantly greater activation in the left middle fusiform gyrus during real and pseudo character processing compared to artificial characters. Moreover, individual analysis revealed that the coordinates were consistent with the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) reported for alphabetic scripts. Results also showed a consistent activation in the left middle frontal gyrus (BA 9) for real and pseudo characters. The relation between this region and the VWFA in Characters processing still needs further investigation.
神经语言学中一个值得注意的争议是，在视觉腹侧流中是否存在一个专门用于视觉单词识别的特定脑区。我们通过对汉字的隐式处理来研究这个问题。在14名正常参与者中，使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）和大小判断任务，比较了两种不同大小的四种类型刺激——真实字符、伪字符、人造字符和棋盘格——的隐式处理。结果表明，当将这三种字符类型相互对比时，与处理人造字符相比，在处理真实字符和伪字符时，左侧梭状回中部的激活明显更强。此外，个体分析显示，这些坐标与已报道的字母文字的视觉词形区（VWFA）一致。结果还显示，真实字符和伪字符在左侧额中回（BA 9）有一致的激活。该区域与字符处理中的VWFA之间的关系仍需进一步研究。
