ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Australia.
Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, USA.
Cortex. 2018 Jun;103:302-315. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.03.020. Epub 2018 Mar 30.
How are reading and writing related? In this study, we address the relationship between letter identification and letter production, uncovering a link in which production information can be used to identify letters presented dynamically. By testing an individual with a deficit in letter identification, we identified a benefit which would be masked by ceiling effects in unimpaired readers. In Experiment 1 we found that letter stimuli defined by the direction of dot motion (tiny dots within letter move leftward, background dots move rightward) provided no advantage over static letters. In Experiment 2, we tested dynamic stimuli in which the letter shapes emerged over time: drawn as they would be written, drawn in reverse, or with the letter shape filled in randomly. Improved identification was observed only for letters drawn as they are typically written. These results demonstrate that information about letter production can be integrated into letter identification, and point to bi-directional connections between stored letter production information (used for writing) and abstract letter identity representations (used in both reading and writing). The links from stored production information to abstract letter identities allow the former to activate the latter. We also consider the implications of our results for remediation of acquired letter identification deficits, including letter-drawing treatments and the underlying cause of their efficacy.
阅读和写作之间有什么关系？在这项研究中，我们研究了字母识别和字母书写之间的关系，揭示了一种联系，即书写信息可以用于动态呈现的字母识别。通过测试一个字母识别缺陷的个体，我们发现了一个优势，而在未受影响的读者中，这个优势会被天花板效应所掩盖。在实验 1 中，我们发现由点运动方向定义的字母刺激（字母内的小点向左移动，背景点向右移动）与静态字母相比没有优势。在实验 2 中，我们测试了动态刺激，其中字母形状随着时间的推移而出现：按照通常的书写方式绘制，反向绘制，或者随机填充字母形状。只有当字母按照通常的书写方式绘制时，识别能力才会提高。这些结果表明，书写信息可以整合到字母识别中，并且存储的书写信息（用于书写）和抽象的字母身份表示（用于阅读和书写）之间存在双向连接。从存储的书写信息到抽象的字母身份的连接允许前者激活后者。我们还考虑了我们的结果对获得的字母识别缺陷的矫正的影响，包括字母绘制治疗及其疗效的潜在原因。
