Uniklinik Köln, Cologne, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020, Salzburg, Austria.
Sci Rep. 2023 Apr 12;13(1):5989. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-33231-x.
The effect of word predictability is well-documented in terms of local brain activation, but less is known about the functional connectivity among those regions associated with processing predictable words. Evidence from eye movement studies showed that the effect is much more pronounced in slow than in fast readers, suggesting that speed-impaired readers rely more on sentence context to compensate for their difficulties with visual word recognition. The present study aimed to investigate differences in functional connectivity of fast and slow readers within core regions associated with processing predictable words. We hypothesize a stronger synchronization between higher-order language areas, such as the left middle temporal (MTG) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and the left occipito-temporal cortex (OTC) in slow readers. Our results show that slow readers exhibit more functional correlations among these connections; especially between the left IFG and OTC. We interpret our results in terms of the lexical quality hypothesis which postulates a stronger involvement of semantics on orthographic processing in (speed-)impaired readers.
词可预测性的影响在局部脑激活方面已有充分记录，但对于与处理可预测词相关的区域之间的功能连接知之甚少。来自眼动研究的证据表明，在慢读者中，这种影响比在快读者中更为明显，这表明速度受损的读者更多地依赖句子语境来弥补他们在视觉单词识别方面的困难。本研究旨在调查快速和慢速读者在与处理可预测词相关的核心区域内的功能连接差异。我们假设，在较慢的读者中，与处理较高层次语言区域（如左中颞叶（MTG）和下额前回（IFG））和左侧枕颞叶皮层（OTC）之间的同步性更强。我们的结果表明，慢读者在这些连接之间表现出更多的功能相关性；特别是在左 IFG 和 OTC 之间。我们根据词汇质量假说来解释我们的结果，该假说假设在（速度）受损的读者中，语义对正字法处理的参与更强。
