The Functional Neuroanatomy of Letter-Speech Sound Integration and Its Relation to Brain Abnormalities in Developmental Dyslexia

This mini-review provides a comparison of the brain systems associated with developmental dyslexia and the brain systems associated with letter-speech sound (LSS) integration. First, the findings on the functional neuroanatomy of LSS integration are summarized in order to obtain a comprehensive overview of the brain regions involved in this process. To this end, neurocognitive studies investigating LSS integration in both normal and abnormal reading development are taken into account. The neurobiological basis underlying LSS integration is consequently compared with existing neurocognitive models of functional and structural brain abnormalities in developmental dyslexia—focusing on superior temporal and occipito-temporal (OT) key regions. Ultimately, the commonalities and differences between the brain systems engaged by LSS integration and the brain systems identified with abnormalities in developmental dyslexia are investigated. This comparison will add to our understanding of the relation between LSS integration and normal and abnormal reading development

No Effect of cathodal tDCS of the posterior parietal cortex on parafoveal preprocessing of words

Abstract The present study investigated the functional role of the posterior parietal cortex during the processing of parafoveally presented letter strings. To this end, we simultaneously presented two letter strings (word or pseudoword) – one foveally and one parafoveally – and asked the participants to indicate the presence of a word (i.e., lexical decision flanker task). We applied cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the posterior parietal cortex in order to establish causal links between brain activity and lexical decision performance (accuracy and latency). The results indicated that foveal stimulus difficulty affected the amount of parafoveally processed information. Bayes factor analysis showed no effects of brain stimulation suggesting that posterior parietal cathodal tDCS does not modulate attention-related processes during parafoveal preprocessing. This result is discussed in the context of recent tDCS studies on attention and performance

Fractionating theory of mind: A meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies

AbstractWe meta-analyzed imaging studies on theory of mind and formed individual task groups based on stimuli and instructions. Overlap in brain activation between all task groups was found in the mPFC and in the bilateral posterior TPJ. This supports the idea of a core network for theory of mind that is activated whenever we are reasoning about mental states, irrespective of the task- and stimulus-formats (Mar, 2011). In addition, we found a number of task-related activation differences surrounding this core-network. ROI based analyses show that areas in the TPJ, the mPFC, the precuneus, the temporal lobes and the inferior frontal gyri have distinct profiles of task-related activation. Functional accounts of these areas are reviewed and discussed with respect to our findings

Psychological Science / Visual experience shapes orthographic representations in the visual word form area

Current neurocognitive research suggests that the efficiency of visual word recognition rests on abstract memory representations of written letters and words stored in the visual word form area (VWFA) in the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex. These representations are assumed to be invariant to visual characteristics such as font and case. In the present functional MRI study, we tested this assumption by presenting written words and varying the case format of the initial letter of German nouns (which are always capitalized) as well as German adjectives and adverbs (both usually in lowercase). As evident from a Word Type Case Format interaction, activation in the VWFA was greater to words presented in unfamiliar case formats relative to familiar case formats. Our results suggest that neural representations of written words in the VWFA are not fully abstract and still contain information about the visual format in which words are most frequently perceived.(VLID)238996

A Common Left Occipito-Temporal Dysfunction in Developmental Dyslexia and Acquired Letter-By-Letter Reading?

We used fMRI to examine functional brain abnormalities of German-speaking dyslexics who suffer from slow effortful reading but not from a reading accuracy problem. Similar to acquired cases of letter-by-letter reading, the developmental cases exhibited an abnormal strong effect of length (i.e., number of letters) on response time for words and pseudowords.Corresponding to lesions of left occipito-temporal (OT) regions in acquired cases, we found a dysfunction of this region in our developmental cases who failed to exhibit responsiveness of left OT regions to the length of words and pseudowords. This abnormality in the left OT cortex was accompanied by absent responsiveness to increased sublexical reading demands in phonological inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) regions. Interestingly, there was no abnormality in the left superior temporal cortex which--corresponding to the onological deficit explanation--is considered to be the prime locus of the reading difficulties of developmental dyslexia cases.The present functional imaging results suggest that developmental dyslexia similar to acquired letter-by-letter reading is due to a primary dysfunction of left OT regions

Neurological function in adult dyslexia

This chapter provides an overview of research on neurological function and dysfunction in dyslexia. The topics covered include historical aspects, modern-day neuroimaging including morphometrical methods, structural and functional connectivity, and functional activation studies. A particular focus lies on the presumably impaired left hemisphere reading network in developmental dyslexia. Finally, current limitations, future developments, as well as promising potentials are discussed

The Functional Neuroanatomy of Developmental Dyslexia across languages and writing systems

The present article reviews the literature on the functional neuroanatomy of developmental dyslexia across languages and writing systems. This includes comparisons of alphabetic languages differing in orthographic depth as well as comparisons across alphabetic, syllabic, and logographic writing systems. It provides a synthesis of the evidence for both universal and language-specific effects on dyslexic functional brain activation abnormalities during reading and reading-related tasks. Specifically, universal reading-related underactivation of dyslexic readers relative to typical readers is identified in core regions of the left hemisphere reading network including the occipito-temporal, temporo-parietal, and inferior frontal cortex. Orthography-specific dyslexic brain abnormalities are mainly related to the degree and spatial extent of under- and overactivation clusters. In addition, dyslexic structural gray matter abnormalities across languages and writing systems are analyzed. The neuroimaging findings are linked to the universal and orthography-dependent behavioral manifestations of developmental dyslexia. Finally, the present article provides insights into potential compensatory mechanisms that may support remediation across languages and writing systems.(VLID)480006

No more advantage for the home team: Refereeing without social pressure in European elite football during the COVID-19 pandemic. Draft version 3 30-03-2021

Introduction. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, European elite football (soccer) leagues played the remaining season 2019/20 without or strongly limited attendance of supporters (i.e., “ghost games”). From a psychological perspective this situation poses a unique opportunity to investigate the crowd’s influence on referee decisions and the associated effect of “home advantage”. Methods. A total of 1286 matches - played in the top leagues of Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Austria and the Czech Republic - were analyzed for results, fouls, bookings and reasons for bookings and contrasted between respective matchdays of season 2018/19 (regular attendance) and season 2019/20 (ghost games). Results. There are two main findings. First, the overall home advantage effect in the respective elite leagues - identified in the respective matches of the regular 2018/19 season – vanished in the ghost games of the 2019/20 season. Consequently, home teams lost significantly more matches, whereas away teams won significantly more matches. Second, only home teams were booked significantly more often with yellow cards for committing fouls in ghost games. Most importantly, our analysis provides evidence that this effect was independent of the course of the games. In contrast, bookings for other reasons (criticism and unfair sportsmanship) changed similarly for both home and away teams in ghost games. Conclusion. We conclude that the lack of supporters in top European football during the COVID-19 pandemic led to decreased social pressure from the ranks on referees. This implication is consistent with previous research in smaller size and experiments in artificial settings. As a result of decreased social pressure, referees assessed the play of home teams more objectively, which further led to increased yellow cards awarded for fouls committed by the home teams. Since there were no significant changes in referee decisions against the away teams, we argue that our observations in ghost games reflect a reduction of unconscious favoritism of referees for the home teams. This key finding provides a firm empirical basis for the development of novel methods - such as virtual reality interventions - for training referees and thus minimizing the effects of decisions made under social pressure

Analysis System for Emotional Behavior in Football (ASEB-F): Matches of FC Red Bull Salzburg without Supporters during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Draft version 2 06-12-2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic the “Austrian Bundesliga” – as in many other European football leagues – resumed the season around the end of May 2020 without supporters in the stadiums. These so-called “ghost games” represent a unique and unprecedented opportunity to study the effects of the (missing) audience on the behavior and experience of sports professionals. The present study is the first of its kind, aimed at addressing the psychological effects of these “ghost games” on football players, staff, and officials. The newly developed “Analysis System for Emotional Behavior in Football” (ASEB-F) was used to video analyze and compare the behavior of players, staff, and officials in – in sum – 20 games of FC Red Bull Salzburg in the “Championship Groups” of season 2018/19 (“regular games”) and season 2019/20 (“ghost games”). Additionally, the two seasons were compared based on official matchday statistics. Overall, there were 19.5% fewer emotional situations in “ghost games” than in “regular games”. The results further show a relative increase in the number of emotional behaviors “Self-Adaptor” (+0.8%), “Protest” (+4.2%) and “Fair-Play-Behavior” (+3.1%) in “ghost games”, whereas “Words fight” (-5.1%) and “Discussion” (-5.1%) decreased in “ghost games”. In “regular games” referees were actively involved in 39.4% of all documented emotional situations, whereas in “ghost games” referees were actively involved in only 25.2% of all documented emotional situations (-14.2%). Chronological analysis within games – from kick-on to kick-off – further shows substantial differences in the temporal occurrence of emotional behavior between “regular games” and “ghost games”. The study provides unprecedented insights into the effects of missing supporters in the football games during the COVID-19 pandemic on emotional behavior on the pitch. Without the external factor of supporters, players and staff acted more factually and got less carried away with longer lasting and extensive “Words fights” and “Discussion”. The evidence from this study indicates that – from a sport psychological perspective – the absence of supporters has a substantial influence on the experience and behavior of players, staff, and officials alike