Brain Processes Written Words As Unique 'Objects,' Neuroscientists Say
Monday, May 4, 2009 - 13:28
in Psychology & Sociology
Neuroscientists have found that an area known to be important for reading in the left visual cortex contains neurons that are specialized to process written words as whole word units. Although some theories of reading as well as neuropsychological and experimental data have argued for the existence of a neural representation for whole written real words (an "orthographic lexicon"), evidence for this has been elusive. In the'brain dictionary,' each whole word is processed by its own set of neurons, a finding that may provide insights for reading disorders.