Examining the Central and Peripheral Processes of Written Word Production Through Meta-Analysis

Producing written words requires “central” cognitive processes (such as orthographic long-term and working memory) as well as more peripheral processes responsible for generating the motor actions needed for producing written words in a variety of formats (handwriting, typing, etc.). In recent years, various functional neuroimaging studies have examined the neural substrates underlying the central and peripheral processes of written word production. This study provides the first quantitative meta-analysis of these studies by applying activation likelihood estimation (ALE) methods (Turkeltaub et al., 2002). For alphabet languages, we identified 11 studies (with a total of 17 experimental contrasts) that had been designed to isolate central and/or peripheral processes of word spelling (total number of participants = 146). Three ALE meta-analyses were carried out. One involved the complete set of 17 contrasts; two others were applied to subsets of contrasts to distinguish the neural substrates of central from peripheral processes. These analyses identified a network of brain regions reliably associated with the central and peripheral processes of word spelling. Among the many significant results, is the finding that the regions with the greatest correspondence across studies were in the left inferior temporal/fusiform gyri and left inferior frontal gyrus. Furthermore, although the angular gyrus (AG) has traditionally been identified as a key site within the written word production network, none of the meta-analyses found it to be a consistent site of activation, identifying instead a region just superior/medial to the left AG in the left posterior intraparietal sulcus. These meta-analyses and the discussion of results provide a valuable foundation upon which future studies that examine the neural basis of written word production can build

Neurocognitive Informatics Manifesto.

Informatics studies all aspects of the structure of natural and artificial information systems. Theoretical and abstract approaches to information have made great advances, but human information processing is still unmatched in many areas, including information management, representation and understanding. Neurocognitive informatics is a new, emerging field that should help to improve the matching of artificial and natural systems, and inspire better computational algorithms to solve problems that are still beyond the reach of machines. In this position paper examples of neurocognitive inspirations and promising directions in this area are given

Digitizing Literacy: Reflections on the Haptics of Writing

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Dissociation of writing processes: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study on the neural substrates for the handwritten production of Chinese characters

Writing is an important way to communicate in everyday life because it can convey information over time and space, but its neural substrates remain poorly known. Although the neural basis of written language production has been investigated in alphabetic scripts, it has rarely been examined in nonalphabetic languages such as Chinese. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study explored the neural substrates of handwritten word production in Chinese and identified the brain regions sensitive to the psycholinguistic factors of word frequency and syllable frequency. To capture this, we contrasted neural activation in “writing” with “speaking plus drawing” and “watching plus drawing.” Word frequency (high, low) and syllable frequency (high, low) of the picture names were manipulated. Contrasts between the tasks showed that writing Chinese characters was mainly associated with brain activation in the left frontal and parietal cortex, whereas orthographic processing and the motor procedures necessary for handwritten production were also related to activation in the right frontal and parietal cortex as well as right putamen/thalamus. These results demonstrate that writing Chinese characters requires activation in bilateral cortical regions and the right putamen/thalamus. Our results also revealed no brain activation associated with the main effects of word frequency and syllable frequency as well as their interaction, which implies that word frequency and syllable frequency may not affect the writing of Chinese characters on a neural level

Dyslexia:From diagnoses to theory

Dyslexia is generally considered to be a disorder of accurate and/or fluent word recognition and spelling and decoding abilities. However, theories about what causes dyslexia differ to a large extent which prevents international agreement about how dyslexia should be diagnosed. In this thesis, various aspects of diagnostic methods were investigated, and new methods were proposed. It was found that existing methods can be improved by using item scores instead of sum scores, by applying multiple classifications, and by carefully evaluating criteria of dyslexia. Furthermore, it was found that self-report statements provide more reliable diagnoses than test results, mainly because self-report statements do not depend on general intelligence and level of schooling. Additionally, a classification accuracy of 80% was found using anatomical brain imaging techniques. Some findings of this thesis are relevant for the interpretation of theoretical perspectives about dyslexia. First, a severity score of dyslexia showed two separate normal distributions for people with and without dyslexia. Second, it was found that dyslexia is characterised by at least six cognitive variables. Third, some of these variables showed significant correlations with various areas in the brain. Fourth, support was found for the idea that anatomical brain differences are mainly the result of individual differences in training. Based on the findings in this thesis, it was proposed that dyslexia may not be a disorder, but a perceptual variation, originating in the subcortex and with widespread effects on various areas in the cortex. Especially processes of inhibition may be impaired in people with dyslexia

The mutation of writing habits and what it means for word learning

Although applied linguists agree that developing phonological and orthographic representations of new words is key to recalling word form and underpins the ability to process new language, research on the mnemonic benefits of writing down target words during L2 vocabulary acquisition has produced mixed results [1, 2, 3]. In addition, writing is facing increasingly keen competition from typing in the digital age. Today, paper-and pencil communication has had to make room for key-to-screen communication in educational as well as professional contexts. From research in educational psychology we know that taking notes on laptops instead of writing longhand involves shallower information processing which negatively affects performance on knowledge tests [4]. In the case of L2 word learning the phonological and orthographical processing that takes place when noting down new words might be sensitive to variations in the conditions under which this processing takes place, i.e. writing versus typing. In our study a classroom experiment was set up to look into the differential impact of writing or typing new words on immediate and delayed receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge as compared to a word learning condition that involved no production of output. The main goal of the study is to verify findings concerning the trade-off relation between semantic and structural processing when learning new words. A second research question is to investigate whether the structural elaboration processes that take place when writing new words lead to similar learning gains than when typing new words. Thirdly, we want to explore whether learners had a preferred learning condition. The main results of this study show that the words that had been typed showed less attrition in the delayed test than the words that had been written. This will be explained in light of the multimodality of the output condition