Presentation
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Investigating the neural underpinnings of reading enjoyment
Poster C129 in Poster Session C, Wednesday, October 25, 10:15 am - 12:00 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Amrita Bains1, Carina Spaulding2, Jessie Ricketts1, Saloni Krishnan1; 1Royal Holloway University of London, 2The Reading Agency
While prior neuroimaging investigations have shed light on the neural circuits implicated in various aspects of reading (such as decoding and the integration of print with semantic meaning), a knowledge gap persists regarding the specific brain regions engaged when we enjoy reading. We hypothesised that reading for pleasure would be associated with increased functional activity in striatal regions associated with reward processing. In the scanner, we presented neurotypical adults (N= 30, 16 females) with 40 book extracts, using the Becker-deGroot-Marshak paradigm. Each extract was presented for 40 seconds. Participants could place bids to buy the books presented (£0, 0.33p, 0.66p, £1). Bids placed were used to establish the desirability of each book (i.e., a bid of £1 indicated a book was highly desirable). We plan to conduct a whole-brain analysis comparing haemodynamic activity for desirable extracts relative to non-desirable extracts and more ROI analyses focusing on the dorsal and ventral striatum. The outcomes of this study will allow us to understand the underlying mechanisms of reading enjoyment in neurotypical adults. This will provide a framework and design to understand these mechanisms in other populations, for example, with poor readers.
Topic Areas: Reading,